Membership participation and ideology in large voluntary organisations: The case of the National Trust

Commonly, voluntary organisations are formally accountable to their memberships, but the rights of members to influence organisational policies are often minimal. Members may be recruited by organisations to provide funding, legitimacy and voluntary help; members may join in order to obtain material benefits, to express support for organisations' goals and, in some cases, to influence policy. The disjunction between these two sets of expectations can lead to disputes in large voluntary bodies, especially those whose members hold a wide range of ideological positions. This creates problems for those running the organisations, who both have to account to a variety of other groups and also maintain their public legitimacy. Illustrations of some of these issues are drawn from environmental organisations, particularly the National Trust. An earlier version of this article was given at the first international conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research at Pecs, Hungary, in July 1994. I am very grateful to Michael Fogarty, Peter Jackson and Jean Warburton for detailed comments on earlier drafts.     

Imagining community and hoping for recognition: Bicentennial celebrations in 1976 and 1988

Bicentennial celebrations were held in the United States in 1976 and in Australia in 1988. Here, I compare talk about national identity by organizers of bicentennials in each country. The commemorations were similarly designed to enact unity while attempting to avoid apathy and dissension. They show a common repertoire of cultural claims which help address the shared constraints of their cultural production. There were also differences in the way different sorts of claims were developed. For Australians, international recognition was much more important than for Americans; for the Americans, founding moment history was much more important than for the Australians. Americans treated political values as foundational in imagined community, and the land had low salience; the reverse was true for the Australians. But both sets of organizers stressed diversity and shared spectacle to recognize, coopt, and imaginatively transcend salient cultural and political difference. The analysis suggests that there is an internationally available repertoire of claims about national identity which includes themes of international recognition, history, abstractly inclusive characteristics like political values or the land, and claims about diversity and spectacle.     

The role of voluntary social welfare organisations in Norway: a democratic alternative to a bureaucratic welfare state?

Taking as a point of departure the postulated political-ideological and fiscal ‘crisis of the welfare state’, this article emphasises recent changes in the relationship between the four sectors of welfare providers: the informal sector of the family or community; the for-profit sector — where social goods are offered by profit-seeking institutions; the formalised sector of voluntary organisations; and the public sector of statutory bodies. Discussion is concentrated on the changing relationship between the voluntary and public sectors. Are voluntary organisations able to cope with new and extensive welfare problems within a more decentralised welfare state? Do they express the values, and do they possess the resources that both governmental agencies and the organisations themselves take for granted?     

Gender,age, and exclusion: a challenge to community organisations in Lima,Peru

This article examines the role of two successful grassroots women's organizations in empowering women in old age in Lima, Peru. These organizations include Comedores Populares (soup kitchens) and the Vaso de Leche (glass of milk) Program. The primary goal of both groups is poverty alleviation, specifically through improved nutrition. Through them, women have lobbied on issues such as provision of education and health services, and campaigned against the guerrilla insurgency of the 1980s and the early 1990s. However, evidence from three low-income settlements on the outskirts of Lima implied that no long-term support is available from these organizations to promote the welfare of elderly people. Also, the contribution that elderly members of households make to the work of the organizations is invisible and undervalued. Thus, these findings clearly suggest that even the most successful New Social Movements in Lima are also passive members of society in need of charity.     

Migrant organisations,belonging and social protection. The role of migrant organisations in migrants' social risk-averting strategies

This article contributes to the debates on migrant social protection assemblages by assessing enabling factors that provide migrants with opportunities to organise their social protection in changing environments. In-depth interviews with migrants who use services from several migrant organisations (MOs) were conducted to study their largely neglected roles in social protection practices. Our findings indicate that MOs are important actors in the field of social protection, as they offer a variety of social services specifically tailored to migrants' needs, while concomitantly supporting them in developing a sense of belonging. Specifically, we identify three functions with which they enable their members to access and accumulate a range of resources relevant to protecting themselves against basic social risks: their networking, consulting, and familiarising functions. In doing so, we also draw attention to the connections between social protection strategies and evolving belongingness. Our findings confirm that MOs are multifunctional and highly responsive to individual needs and are therefore important actors in the field of social protection.     

Change and continuity in youth transitions in Eastern Europe: Lessons for Western sociology*

This paper argues that the evidence from research among young people in post‐communist countries vindicates and should consolidate confidence in the Western sociology of youth's conventional transitions paradigm which seeks links between social origins, routes and destinations. Contrary to claims about postmodern fluidity, individualisation, and a blurring of traditional structural boundaries, the expected links between origins, routes and destinations have persisted throughout the transformation of the former communist countries. The relevant evidence also confirms the primacy of education‐to‐work and family/housing life stage transitions. Other aspects of young people's lives – their uses of leisure, levels and patterns of social and political participation, and socio‐political attitudes, for example – become meaningful and explicable only when set in the context of the routes that individuals’ lives have taken, and the stages that they have reached, vis‐à‐vis their school‐to‐work and family and housing transitions. The paper proceeds to argue that the exceptionally thorough changes that are still in process in East‐Central Europe and the former USSR reveal with exceptional clarity the processes whereby young people's life chances are structured in ways that are not of the individuals’ own making. It has been, and it remains, possible to observe how young adults learn from their own youth life stage transition experiences and, where applicable, use the assets that they acquire or retain, to advantage their own children thereby structuring the opportunities that confront all members of subsequent cohorts of young people. Finally, it is argued that the sociological approach being advocated is uniquely able to use the evidence from young people as a window through which to identify the impact of the ongoing macro‐changes in former communist countries among different socio‐demographic groups in the wider populations.     

Continuities in Support for Racial Equality, 1972 to 1976

Capitalizing upon the panel component of the 1972–1976National Election Study, we explore change in white Americans'support for racial equality. Two general propositions regardingindividual change are examined: frustration-aggression theory,which attributes change to the stresses and strains of privatelife; and realistic group conflict theory, which attributeschange to the tangible threats blacks pose to whites' privateinterests. We find intermittent support for the first and virtuallyno support for the second. Much more impressive is the durabilityof opinion on racial equality, the insulation of racial opinionfrom the ostensibly powerful predicaments of private life.     

TRENDS IN TOLERANCE TOWARD RIGHTIST AND LEFTIST GROUPS, 1976-1988: EFFECTS OF ATTITUDE CHANGE AND COHORT SUCCESSION

Trends in tolerance are tested for groups on the Right and onthe Left of the political spectrum with 1976–88 GeneralSocial Survey data. Findings are that (1) tolerance increasedtoward leftist groups but not toward rightist groups; (2) succession,the replacement of older cohorts by more recent cohorts, increased tolerance toward leftists and rightists alike, partiallyon account of more recent cohorts' higher levels of education;and (3) attitude change within cohorts reduced tolerance butonly toward rightists. Overall, trends toward greater toleranceseem not to be mere reflections of reduced opposition to unpopulargroups but instead reflect changes in willingness to allow expressionof opposed ideas.     

Frames,organisations, and practices as social components of energy

The paper examines three social dimensions of energy. The first one is cognitive; energy is a way of knowing, a macro-concept which works as a frame. Moreover, energy is conceived as a social product; its physical aspects are inextricably bound up with human interactions and meaning attributions. The second dimension is energy organisation. Energy is an instrument used by human beings in order to achieve a goal. In that sense, energy can be assimilated to a technology: that is, a set of knowledges, tools, and actions assembled according to certain rules and traditions. Of energy as organisation it is interesting to consider how it becomes an institution. Its third dimension is practical: it guides our behaviour. This meaning sums up the other two. Energy consumption makes it possible to understand different lifestyles, different logics of action, different habits or customs. It is intrinsic to the most common practices. Worries about consumption or resources depletion are included in some practices of which energy is one of the most important components. The paper concludes with a comment on the energy crisis as a test for the illustrated multidimensional scheme.     

The Extent and Rate of Divorce in Plateau State,Nigeria 1980 to 1988

The major issue for this research was to investigate the extent and rate of divorce, its causes and attitudes toward divorce laws. This study surveyed 3500 people from the selected local government areas. The findings show high divorce rate, and 71.2% of the husbands had their divorce in courts as opposed lo 76.6% of the wives who had their marriages annulled in courts. Adultery ranked the highest among the reasons for divorce, while the wives were more likely than their husbands to have negative attitudes toward divorce laws because they are always the victims of divorce not protected by the law.     

Non-government development organisations and the grassroots in Peru

This paper examines the long-term grassroots empowerment strategies endorsed by non-governmental development organisations (NGDOs) in Lima, Peru and their application in concrete development programmes. An examination of NGDO literature and projects permits the synthesis of three ideal-typical empowerment strategies (Neo-Marxist, Neo-Anarchist, Coalition-Building). These strategies are described and compared, especially with respect to their diverging conceptions on processes of botton-up development, the characterisation of grassroots mobilisation and the role of the state and political parties. These differences, however, tend to be compromised once actual advocacy work with the grassroots is contemplated, when development projects have to deal with the micro-mobilisation patterns of the poor and the political conjuncture. Several interpretations of the contradiction between idealtypical strategies and actual advocacy tactics are discussed, concluding that such contradictions are inherent to any political process based on grassroots empowerment and a bottom-up agenda.     

Public relations intersections: Statues,monuments, and narrative continuity

Public relations theory addresses strategic processes, including rhetorical strategies, that enable critical understanding of why and how communities develop, promulgate, and use text, in this case, statues and monuments, to establish narrative continuity based on moral judgment in the pursuit of relatedness. That paradigm reasons that narratives provide enactable continuity that binds the past, present, and future to culturally guide coordinated discourse and action. How statues and monuments are important to that end can be demonstrated by public relations practice in the United States: Post-Civil War to today. To develop that theme, this paper discusses how statues and monuments serve as textual resources that bind time and moralize behavior through commemoration/counter commemoration. As an intersection with narrative theory, epideictic rhetoric has celebrated (or condemned) citizenship actions that reflect and define moral behavior. Such rhetoric uses moral standards to judge acts, and advocates acts as worthy of praise as they exemplify moral standards. If standards change, acts that once were lauded can become condemned as unworthy of praise. Using the civil society intersection of narrative continuity, epideictic rhetoric, and relational capital, three eras will be examined to demonstrate the issue cause-related intersection of statues/monuments in the USA: (1) Post-Civil War and Reconstruction (roughly 1868–1900), (2) Jim Crow era (late 19th and early 20th century); and (3) recent efforts to erect, protect, and remove statues and monuments that support or disrupt the narrative continuity that enacts race-based marginalization and disempowerment as relatedness tensions.     

Bodies, Disability and Spaces: the social model and disabling spatial organisations

This essay examines the relevance of socio-material space to the social model. The social model has been criticised as being disembodied. While there is some basis for this critique, the social model, in fact, has 'bodies in space' as a central concern. A distinction is made between disability as a sociocultural and biomedical category, and as a state of 'not being able to'. The latter usage is not just relevant to people with disabilities. In order to illustrate the strength of the social model, disabling social organisations of space-time practises are examined with a special emphasis on transport-public space. It is concluded that the social model offers insights into relationships between bodies, embodied agency and the social organisation of space-time.     

Perceptions of Effectiveness of Responses to Sexual Harassment in the US Military, 1988 and 1995

This analysis compares patterns of response to the harassment experiences that had the greatest effect on the respondents to the ‘1988 Department of Defense (DoD) Survey of Sex Roles in the Active‐Duty Military’ and Form A of the ‘1995 Armed Forces Sexual Harassment Survey’. We analyse the respondents’ perceptions about effectiveness of their responses, and respondents’ opinions about the efforts of senior military leadership, and their own immediate supervisors’ efforts to ‘make honest and reasonable efforts to stop sexual harassment in the active‐duty military’ ( DoD, 1988 ; Bastian et al., 1996 ). Results indicate that while the military has been somewhat successful in attempts to lower actual incidence of sexual harassment, the percentage of those experiencing such uninvited and unwanted behaviours remains high. Similar patterns of responses in both years, with most employing personal solutions and few filing complaints with officials, may reflect the fact that official DoD policy focuses on individual behaviour and does not address the masculine environmental context that promotes such behaviours (see also Harrell and Miller, 1997 ). Findings also suggest that the ‘no tolerance’ policies adopted by the military may concentrate on the military image but ignore the wishes of the complainants who fear reprisals. If the rights and wishes of all parties involved are not taken into account, policies are unlikely to be successful (see, for example, Rowe, 1996 ).     

Demographic Change in Nonmetropolitan America, 1980 to 19901

Abstract Between 1980 and 1990, the nonmetropolitan population grew by 3.7 percent. Natural increase accounted for the entire population gain, offsetting a small migration loss (1.7%). A significant net loss of young adults from nonmetropolitan areas was only partially offset by an influx of older adults. The net gain through natural increase was small by historical standards and natural decrease became more common. The demographic trends of the 1980s were neither a repeat of the turnaround of the 1970s nor a reversion to historical patterns. Rather, they straddled the trends of the two preceding periods. These findings provide the demographic groundwork for future theoretical development. The policy implications of such population redistribution and demographic compositional shifts also are considered.     

Non-governmental organisations and philanthropy in Latin America: An overview

This article provides an overview of the emerging non-profit or voluntary sector in Latin America. Specifically, the article addresses the differences and communalities these non-profit organisations have across the region. It concludes by emphasising the huge variety of roles and functions performed by non-profit organisations within and across countries, and their often ambigious position between the private and public realms.     

Non-profit organisations in India: historical development and common patterns

The article documents the history of the Indian voluntary or non-profit sector involved in socio-economic development of the country. Specifically, three questions are addressed. What type of voluntary organisations existed at what periods of history, and what were their primary activities? Who were the founders, and what were their motives? Can we detect common themes or underlying patterns in the way in which the Indian voluntary sector has developed? Or in other words: what is the institutional genesis of the non-profit or voluntary sector in India? The findings are based on multiple sources — literature review, interviews and observation, and information requested through the mail. The article differs from most historical studies on Indian non-profit organisations because it takes an analytical approach by drawing from contemporary literature on such organisations.     

Race and Childlessness in America, 1988–2002

This paper bridges the literature on childlessness, which often focuses on married White couples, to the literature on race and fertility, which often focuses on why total fertility rates and nonmarital births are higher for Blacks than Whites. Despite similarity in levels of childlessness among Black women and White women, Black trends have been largely ignored. Recent research has not adequately explored the extent to which factors driving childlessness may vary among Black and White women. We attempted to fill this gap using the National Survey of Family Growth (N = 3,628) and found many similarities in the predictors of childlessness for both races. Exceptions were the role of marital status and educational attainment.     

Voluntary organisations and the social state in the European Community

Accurate comparison of the social welfare systems operating in the twelve countries of the European Community is inhibited by lack of information about the voluntary or non-governmental organisations which form an important element in those systems. This paper summarises available information about the scale and scope of voluntary organisations, and attempts to set them in the context of current policy debates. The changing nature of the family in Europe, the development of mixed economies in the provision of welfare, the functions of NGOs as employers and organisers of volunteering, the future of NGOs after 1992, and in the context of a steadily more open Europe are some of the themes which are preoccupying voluntary organisations in most countries of the Community. The paper refers to the inadequacy of most data on NGOs atnational level and to the consequent impossibility of constructing valid cross-national comparisons.I am grateful to the Department of Social Welfare in Dublin for sponsoring the work on which this paper is based. An earlier version was presented as a background paper at the European ConferencePartners in Progress, jointly organised by the Minister of Social Welfare and the EC Commission in Galway, Ireland, June 1990.