Exploring the Impact of Political Context on State–Civil Society Relations: Actors’ Strategies in a Developmental State

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - How does a state govern civil society organizations (CSOs) under the framework of a developmental state? This article...     

Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization of “Civil Society” in Africa: State–Civil Society Relations in Ghana from 1982–2000

Despite civil society’s ambiguity, many scholars tend to focus on the economic reasons for the apparent conflict between state and civil society, with little or no attention to the conceptual differences that may be influencing the behavior of public and civil society actors. Using Ghana under J. J. Rawlings as a backdrop, this article argues that state–civil society relations are partly shaped by the divergent conceptualizations of “civil society” held by state and civil society actors. It suggests that the issue is not just the African state’s limited understanding of the multiple roles that civil society organizations can legitimately play in the polity; it is also civil society’s lack of recognition and acknowledgment of the legitimate functions of the African state.     

Think Tanks: New Organizational Actors in a Changing Swedish Civil Society

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Policy institutes, or “think tanks”, are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in our societies. In this article,...     

Between Collaboration and Subordination: State and Non-state Actors in Russian Anti-drug Policy

Due to weak state and administrative capacity, the Russian government has involved resource-rich non-state actors into policy-making since about 2005 and established numerous institutionalized platforms, networks, and forums. These networks mainly emerge on regional and local levels and are designed to generate policy advice, implement decisions, and contribute to output legitimacy. A crucial question is how the authorities govern and regulate these bodies under the terms of a hybrid regime. The paper sheds light on why and how state authorities interact with non-state actors and unravels functions and flavors of governance networks in Russia. Drawing on the empirical results of case studies on anti-drug policy conducted in the regions Samara and St Petersburg, the paper reveals that state dominance within networks is a significant characteristic, although authorities rarely apply explicit ‘hard’ tools of government onto collaborations with non-state actors. The paper also allows for theorizing on the role of governance networks in a hybrid regime.

     

Correction to: Think Tanks: New Organizational Actors in a Changing Swedish Civil Society

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - In the captions for Figures 1 and 2, a reference was inadvertently omitted.     

The State and Civil Society in Disaster Response

Abstract

This paper, based on the report “The State and Civil Society in Disaster Response: An Analysis of the Tamil Nadu Tsunami Experience,” (Srinivasan, Nagaraj, & Venkatesh, 2005) is essentially an empirical analysis of state and civil society responses in Tamil Nadu (India) to the tsunami of December 26, 2004. It examines interventions by state and non-state agencies, as well as people's experiences in the relief and rehabilitation phases to identify factors influencing both positive and negative outcomes of the tsunami response. Issues related to vulnerability and exclusion, equity, transparency and accountability in different sectors of disaster intervention are explored to highlight themes revolving around reach and efficacy of relief and recovery processes. These analyses bring out some interesting lessons with regard to the importance of institutional autonomy, non-politicized decision-making, and synergetic state-civil society interfaces in fostering inclusive, transparent and accountable rehabilitation processes. The roles played by institutional responsiveness and flexibility in shaping an effective disaster response also emerge very clearly from this study of the Tamil Nadu experience. Another crucial finding points to the need for detailed, reliable and disaggregated geo-demographic and socioeconomic records as a resource base for informing relief and rehabilitation interventions. The study draws extensively from the experiences and insights of people affected by, and involved in tsunami response, and from secondary knowledge resources available on the disaster.     

Correction to: Between Collaboration and Subordination: State and Non-state Actors in Russian Anti-drug Policy

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This paper was intended for the present special section Civil Society in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes, but published...     

Civil Society Organizations and Labour Market Integration for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Greece

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The 2015 crisis of refugee policies saw an upgrade in the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) as service providers...     

Sponsoring Civil Society: State and Community Movement in Taiwan*

This article contributes to the growing literature on the synergic production of civil society in newly democratized countries. State sponsorship can be effective when clientelism, as a form of social dominance, continues to frustrate purposive organization from below. Three elements are necessary for this scenario. First, a group of reform‐minded officials must be able to pursue an independent agenda that deviates from local elites. Second, reformers have to create new institutional avenues to channel resources downward by bypassing local politicians. Lastly, civil society organizations must be capable of effectively responding to the initiatives from above. I use Taiwan’s community movement to understand the logic and consequences of sponsoring civil society. State endorsement is critical to legitimatize community organizations’ presence in local politics. With a detailed analysis of a local case, the Qiaodou community movement, I argue that state sponsorship is critical for the growth of civil society organizations. Sponsored movement activism maintains its political independence by leveraging the incoherence in bureaucratic division of labor, and its professional expertise offers an advantageous bargaining position when facing officials.     

Managing Expectations, Demands and Myths: Swedish Study Associations Caught Between Civil Society, the State and the Market

Several challenges, external and internal, to the identity and position of civil society organizations exist today. Organizations may be tempted or coerced into closer cooperation with the state. There are also incentives to become more market oriented. This article deals with such struggles in Swedish study associations and how these organizations attempt to gain legitimacy. The tradition of the organization is an important legitimating aspect and so is efficiency. These two aspects can complement each other but may also collide. The article demonstrates how civil society organizations handle an influx of market logics and trends of professionalization when these clash with a civil society identity. The findings indicate that different isomorphic processes are at work. Cultural resources are used to handle conflicting myths, leading to varied discursive strategies and incidences of decoupling.     

Development NGOs: Actors in a Global Civil Society or in a New International Social System?

The international aid system forms a powerful structural force impacting organizational landscapes and civil societies all over the world in complex ways we do not yet understand. Dominant NGO research has failed to properly address this crucial issue, because of a conceptual, theoretical, and ideological tradition that is itself embedded in this very same system's normative, rhetorical agenda. This paper suggests some conceptual and theoretical approaches that should encourage more comparative research on the role of the development NGOs in shaping national and global civil societies     

Talking about Integration: The Voices of Syrian Refugees Taking Part in Introduction Programmes for Integration into Swedish Society

The significant increase in the number of refugees entering the European Union and the low employment rates among them remain pressing issues across Europe. While previous research has mainly focused on refugee integration prospects from the policymakers’ point of view, we shift the analytical focus to how refugees perceive the introduction programme experience, examining the case of Syrian refugees to Sweden. Drawing upon semi‐structured interviews with Syrian refugees, our results suggest that the quality of language training, the complexity of the validation process for educational qualifications and the lengthy administrative procedures are perceived as important barriers hindering the access of refugees to the Swedish labour market. These barriers are differently perceived, especially by those with differing levels of education. This highlights the utility of an intersectional approach, and the continued need to explore the diversity of migrant experiences when assessing integration policies and programmes.     

An Analysis of State–Civil Society Relations in Finland: A Case of Joensuu

Theoretical researches have argued that state–civil society relations differ from one country to another because of different economic, political, and socio-cultural factors. This article aims to show civil society’s role in the Finnish welfare state and how the state and the civil society affect each other in Joensuu, a 72,167 populated Finnish city. Joensuu case is analyzed from the theoretical perspectives of Esping-Andersen (The three worlds of welfare capitalism, 1990), Young (Nonprofit Volunt Sector Q 29:149–172, 2000), and Schofer and Fourcade-Gourinchas (Am Sociol Rev 66: 806–828, 2001) by taking into account interviews with 13 members of voluntary organizations in the city. In the light of the field work, the argument is based on the negative impact of welfare system’s transformation process on nongovernmental organizations in Joensuu, Finland.     

Between Church and State: a Christian Brotherhood’s Faithful Claims to Secularity in Mexico City

Qualitative Sociology - The Good News Businessmen’s Brotherhood (GNBB) is a Christian organization with evangelical commitments, charismatic practices, and whose members insist that their...     

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.     

Transnational Activities of Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Hindering or Supporting Integration

This article focuses on transnational activities of Syrian refugees in Turkey examining the relationship between such activities and integration. The main research question addressed in this article is whether involvement in transnational activities hinders or supports the integration processes of Syrian refugees in Turkey, by drawing upon fieldwork in Istanbul, Ankara, Hatay and Gaziantep. I argue that Syrian refugees perceive integration as a survival mechanism and use transnational activities as a strategy for adapting to a new society, especially when they are faced with insecure legal status and a lack of access to rights in the receiving country. This study contributes to the literature on refugee transnationalism and integration by focusing on the refugees’ perceptions of on integration processes and addressing the question of survival.     

Interest Groups,NGOs or Civil Society Organisations? The Framing of Non-State Actors in the EU

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Scholars have used varying terminology for describing non-state entities seeking to influence public policy or work with...     

Walking on a Tightrope: Challenges and Opportunities for Civil Society Organizations Working with Refugees and Migrants in Turkey

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This qualitative study sheds light onto the working structures, make-up, and strengths and weaknesses of civil society...