The Organization of Nonprofit Activities

This paper investigates the repertoire of organizational forms in Western societies in order to assess the nonprofit sector's distinctiveness. A repertoire of six different ideal type constructs is presented adding to and reformulating existing theories, which have primarily focused on the market and the firm. This new extended theoretical platform builds both on theories discussing market, organization, and governmental failures and on approaches where homo economicus is replaced by homo complexicus and transactions by interactions. This effort aims at making the nonprofit (or voluntary) sector in society both more visible and theoretically substantiated. At the end of this paper, the theoretical framework is applied by analyzing empirical nonprofit organizations.     

Social Defenses Against Organizational Learning

It is argued that for organizational learning to occur maladaptive social defenses within the organization have to be altered. The origins of the concept of social defenses are traced through the work of Jaques and Menzies. A new concept of system domain, and related concepts of system domain fabric, and system domain defenses, are proposed in order to account for the difficulties in sustaining organizational change in organizations that share a similar primary task. Organizational learning is defined as occurring when there is co-evolution of organizational container and contained. The article distills variables from three successful consultancy/action research projects which are characteristic of organizations that are learning, and it is hypothesized that the creation of organizational awareness is necessary for organizational learning to occur.     

Qualitative immediacy and the communicative act

Qualitative immediacy (also termed quality in its philosophical sense and esthetic quality) is of fundamental importance within the pragmatic conception of meaning as interpretive act, and yet it has been virtually ignored by social scientists. The concept is traced through its foundations in Peirce's philosophy, its development in Dewey's theory of esthetic experience, and its relation to the general pragmatic conception of the self. The importance of the I in Mead's view of the self is seen as similar to Firstness in Peirce and esthetic experience in Dewey. Those turning to qualitative approaches ought to consider qualitative immediacy as a genuine addition to our understanding of human communication.I am grateful for helpful comments from Milton Singer, Kevin McMurtrey, Benjamin Lee, and Thomas Buckley, and for an opportunity to discuss this paper in the seminar on dialogue at the Center for Psychosocial Studies, Chicago. A postdoctoral fellowship (T32 MH 14668) at the Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, and the University of Chicago, provided time for the writing of this paper.     

The partisanship of silence: Symbolic politics of school desegration in Boston

This article analyzes the symbolic aspects of the school desegration controversy using disputes in Boston as a case in point. The symbolic communication between actors in the public forum contains implicit views of the rights and obligations of different participants in the controversy, and the role of various individuals and collectives in the history of the controversy. These views also provide a framework for understanding the position of specific actors, which may constrain their ability to participate effectively in the controversy. This article analyzes these constraints with respect to those actors who attempted to establish a mediator role between pro-integration and anti-busing forces.Prepared under grants from the National Institute of Education (NIE-6-00-3-0187, NIE-6-76-0038), National Institute of Mental Health, (R01-MH-27618) and the Carnegie Corporation.     

Inclusive Governance and “Minority” Groups: The Role of the Third Sector in Wales

Following the establishment of a national legislature in Wales in 1999 the third sector has entered into a pioneering cross-sectoral partnership with the Welsh government. This paper presents the results of a research project that has studied the new structures of devolved governance through the expectations and participation of voluntary organizations representing three marginalized or minority groupings: women, disabled people, and those from an ethnic minority background. The findings reveal that despite varying levels of expectation expressed by minority voluntary groups, active engagement of minority groups in policy making has been a feature of the Assembly's first months. Nevertheless, formidable challenges face both sectoral partners in the new system of governance, not least in creating organizational structures that facilitate partnership working in the devolved polity.     

Queering Identities: The Roles of Integrity and Belonging in Becoming Ourselves

This article presents a picture of the complexities and contradictions in the daily lives of people in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire who identify as, or are identified as, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender queer, questioning, and allied people (LGBTQQA). In this study, the author uses a grounded theory approach to focus on the Create Our Destiny conference. Clear patterns emerged, such as the importance of coming out, labels, and gender identity. A common theme underlying these areas was the tension people experienced between seeking a sense of belonging and maintaining their personal sense of integrity. This study shows that people in the Seacoast want to be fully and wholly themselves, or as the author represents their interests, to strive toward singularity. The author argues that striving towards singularity requires people to grapple with their unexamined codes and principles, such as those pertaining to compulsory heterosexuality and gender duality, by increasing and valuing self-awareness and reflexivity.     

Cultural elites and the institutionalization of ideas

Members of a multidisciplinary elite, specified by their involvement in the cultural definition of a complex, moral issue, brain death, are examined in terms of (1) their biographical, demographic, and organizational characteristics; and (2) their substantive contributions to the institutionalization of the concept of brain death. Since there are as yet no formal organizations or social roles of death definers, particular attention is addressed to participants' social identities, their reasons for involvement with this issue, and their emergent and formal social formations. Their work and social structure are compared with other cultural elites, intellectuals, and scientists. It is argued that the process of redefining death was a dialectical process of organization, production, reception, and response driven by conflict and opposition among the elite, rather than by consensus.     

Social Origins of Civil Society: Explaining the Nonprofit Sector Cross-Nationally

Recent research has usefully documented the contribution that nonprofit organizations make to social capital and to the economic and political development it seems to foster. Because of a gross lack of basic comparative data, however, the question of what it is that allows such organizations to develop remains far from settled. This article seeks to remedy this by testing five existing theories of the nonprofit sector against data assembled on eight countries as part of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. The five theories are: (a) government failure/market failure theory; (b) supply-side theory; (c) trust theories; (d) welfare state theory; and (e) interdependence theory. The article finds none of these theories adequate to explain the variations among countries in either the size, the composition, or the financing of the nonprofit sector. On this basis it suggests a new theoretical approach to explaining patterns of nonprofit development among countries—the social origins approach—which focuses on broader social, political, and economic relationships. Using this theory, the article identifies four routes of third-sector development (the liberal, the social democratic, the corporatist, and the statist), each associated with a particular constellation of class relationships and pattern of state-society relations. The article then tests this theory against the eight-country data and finds that it helps make sense of anomalies left unexplained by the prevailing theories.     

The coming revolution of biotechnology: A critique of Buttel

Frederick Buttel was one of the pioneers in studying the social impacts of biotechnology, claiming originally that it will involve profound changes in social structure. Recently Buttel turned around his argument proposing that, rather than revolutionary, biotechnology is more a substitutionist technological form to be applied to declining sectors of the economy than an epoch-making technology. This paper provides both external and internal critiques of Buttel's new position based on the concept of the third technological revolution, looking at the impact of new technologies as a global and interrelated phenomenon, and not on an individual case-by-case basis. The concluding section suggests the necessity of bringing into the analysis those living in the Third World: 60% of this population lives from agriculture and will be affected by the deployment of agricultural biotechnologies, whether through substitutionism or through totally new products.     

“Racism” and Colonialism: Meanings of Difference and Ruling Practices in America's Pacific Empire

This article examines the meanings of race and difference in the first years of American colonialism in the Philippines, Guam, and Samoa. Moving beyond existing sociological studies of race and colonial discourse, I demonstrate that the meanings of racial difference in the U.S. Pacific empire were contemporaneously polyvalent, constituting an overarching field of multiple rather than uniform classifications. The different meanings formed the basis for intra-imperial debate among colonizing agents. They also contributed to notable variations in forms of colonial governance and policy across the empire. The implication for future study is that race should best be apprehended as a code that takes on specific meanings and obtains its social force only in particular contexts of use and utterance.     

Theory at risk: Accounting for the excellence movement

Amidst widespread concern about educational crisis and the need for reform, the current excellence movement places a pronounced emphasis on rigor, standards, and a core curriculum of basic studies. At issue here is whether major macro-the-oretical perspectives can account for the emergence of this movement. Functional and Marxian theories do not meet this challenge well, especially insofar as they posit a tight, rational linkage between school and economy and downplay the institutional autonomy of the educational system. A status conflict approach, emphasizing middle class mobilization, offers greater insight, though it must be complemented with a recognition of constraints imposed by capitalist organization and the institutionalization of educational myths.     

New-class dissent among social-cultural specialists: The effects of occupational self-direction and location in the public sector

Recent research suggests that new-class dissent is concentrated among the social-cultural specialists Kristol identifies as the principal critics of a business culture. Kohn's research on the micro-foundations of authoritarian conservatism suggests a plausible explanation centered on the subjective effects of occupational self-direction, a variable curiously missing from other models of new-class dissent. An alternative explanation, derived from state-centered theories of the new class, points instead to the concentration of these social-sicence and arts-related occupations outside the commercial economy. Using covariance structure analysis of new survey data, this study finds that occupational self-direction entails a propensity to question systemic inequities and a reluctance to blame the victims of poverty and discrimination. The antibusiness animus of Kristol's counterelites, conversely, arises in spite of, not because of, their highly self-directed work, reflecting instead their concentration in the public and nonprofit sectors.     

Recovering from Homelessness: Determining the “Quality of Sobriety” in a Transitional Housing Program

Recent years have seen fundamental shifts in the objectives and delivery of assistance to the homeless. An early emphasis on emergency shelter and monetary housing assistance has been replaced by a focus on programs designed to blend shelter with an array of social services. In most instances, however, programs combining shelter and social services are designed as transitional; that is, they are intended to help homeless individuals and families move from a position of dependence to one where they can live independently. The emphasis in transitional housing programs is on making homeless people housing ready. This paper concerns the process of assessing housing readiness as observed during eighteen months of fieldwork in a federally supported transitional housing program for formerly homeless single adults. The detailed case study that follows supports three important findings. First, there was virtual unanimity among staff and residents that substance abuse was the cause of their homelessness and the key to its solution. Second, success within the program was defined and operationalized along very specific but well understood normative dimensions that have little to do with the material circumstances in which residents find themselves and everything to do with recovery. Third, recovery—the key to housing readiness in this environment—was measured not by objective measures, i.e., number of months sober, but rather by what was widely referred to as one's quality of sobriety, a subjective and consequently often hotly debated measure of attitude and outlook only loosely related to demonstrable abstinence from alcohol. This last finding, that ultimately housing readiness is a subjective judgment, both increases the discretion of shelter staff and generates a systematic disattention to the individual economic issues that are fundamental to an exit from homelessness.     

“FOB” and “Whitewashed”: Identity and Internalized Racism Among Second Generation Asian Americans

An analysis of 184 in-depth interviews with grown children of Korean and Vietnamese immigrants finds that the racial beliefs, meanings, and stereotypes of the mainstream society shape how they think about coethnics, generate local identities, and deflect stigma from themselves. We examine the terms FOB (Fresh Off the Boat) and whitewashed that were commonly deployed to denigrate coethnic others as too ethnic or too assimilated while casting those at the bicultural middle as the normals. We describe how this system of intraethnic othering serves as a basis for sub-ethnic identities, intraethnic social boundaries, and the monitoring and control of social behavior. We draw on the concept of internalized racial oppression in framing our findings.     

La Terza Via

Conclusion From these critical contributions, it is clear that there exists, among secondary commentators, extensive support for Carl Boggs's claim that the strategy of the Southern European communist parties, and the PCI in particular, represents not an optimistic third path but a return to the original path of Bernsteinian social democracy. There is also evident a widespread, if not universal, belief that orthodox leninism does not offer a satisfactory alternative. But while the standing of the PCPs Terza Via as an alternative to either social democracy or leninism is thus repeatedly questioned, counterposed authentically distinctive and radical accounts of the third way are, at best, rudimentary. Though not wholly unsupported, the advocacy of anti-passive revolution or sweeping transformation of the state gives very little indication of what an alternative third way would entail in practice in, for example, the Italian context. This is clearly one source of the PCI's impatience with its overly theoretical critics.If the suggestions of Buci-Glucksmann, Poulantzas, and others are too general and programmatic, it is possible that a practical alternative to the established party interpretation of the Terza Via might be sought among differing positions within the PCI. If we take the PCI's most recent strategy - the pursuit of the Democratic Alternative - it is indeed possible to identify significant divergences between right and left. As presented by Berlinguer, the strategy of Democratic Alternative was seen to consummate a breach with the Historic Compromise - a move away from Christian Democracy in favor of a left alternative, a move away from an exclusive reliance upon parliamentary alliance in favor of a mobilisation of social forces and movements. But he continued to emphasize that the party's electoral strength... is still the decisive factor in changing the balance of forces in favor of the alternative, while Napolitano, speaking for the right of the party, has tended to view the Democratic Alternative as a strategy for party and parliamentary alliance with the PSI, as the basis of a government able to pursue a policy for the relaunching of (economic) development in such a way as to avoid fuelling inflation. By contrast, Pietro Ingrao, spokesperson of the left of the party, has insisted that the alternative is not simply a proposal for central government and he has given much more weight to the promotion of a more general radical social movement organized around the pursuit of radical social alliances, built upon greater local autonomy and in-party democracy.But it is not clear that (even) this left variant of the Democratic Alternative has defined the grounds upon which a more radical Tefza Via could be constructed. Indeed, the experience of the PCI strategists themselves lends considerable support to the belief that there are chronic difficulties in overcoming the social democracy-leninism divide from within even a broadly conceived Marxian framework. For example, the experience of the new social movements - to which all sides of the PCI express themselves to be open - illustrates the considerable difficulties of comprehending the diversity of contemporary emancipatory struggles with the tools of conventional Marxian class analysis. Similarly, the ambivalence of state action - neatly captured in Offe's claim that socialism in industrially advanced societies cannot be built without state power and it cannot be built upon state power - is illcomprehended by classical Marxist accounts of the capitalist state and its withering away. In short, the evidence of the Italian experience suggests both that an emancipatory politics is perhaps not best understood as the pursuit of a third road to socialism and that, in fact, such a politics can no longer be exclusively based upon Marxian premises. Contemporary circumstances suggest the need for a new evaluation of the nature of state and civil society and a view of democracy and pluralism quite at variance with the rudimentary positions of both social democracy and leninism.If the capacity of the left wing of the PCI to respond to this challenge is doubtful, the prospects of the mainstream PCI meeting it are minimal. For they are resolutely committed to a reformist interpretation of the Terza Via in which a deeply entrenched commitment to Marxism as an objectivistic theory of social development seems to legitimate, as it did for the Second International, a largely reformist practice. But, at the same time, it should be clear that this is a commitment that arises less from doctrinal preferences than from the institutional and practical dilemmas experienced by any socialist party seeking mass electoral support. It is a difficulty starkly posed by Przeworski: Participation in electoral politics is necessary if the movement for socialism is to find mass support among workers, yet this participation seems to obstruct the attainment of final goals. Under the peculiar exclusionary circumstances of Italian politics, this problem is especially pronounced. In the election of 1983, under the new strategy, the Communist vote held up quite well, (down 0.5% at 29.9%), while the DC tumbled from 38.3% to 32.9%. In the European elections of 1984, the PCI even crept ahead of the DC. But despite these historical reversals for Christian Democracy, Italy continued to be governed by a DC-PSI coalition, under the premiership of the PSI leader Bettino Craxi. Committed to an electoral strategy, the Italian communists - powerful in the unions, strongly embedded in civil society, experienced and widespread in local government, consistently able to secure around a third of the popular vote - still found themselves excluded from governmental power.The irony of the PCI's position is neatly caught by Middlemas: the PCI has come closer than any other CP to bridging the ancient gap between the Second and Third Internationals, yet the only fruit appears to be that it has inherited what in the halcyon mid-70s it used to call the crisis of social democracy. While elements of a radical third way may indeed be found in the experience of Italian Marxism, the PCI repeatedly finds its options foreclosed, on the one hand, by the limitations of social democracy and, on the other, by the unacceptability of leninism. Indeed, its continuing difficulties, in the face of its very considerable strengths, lend further support to the claim that even a quite radically reconstructed Marxism is inadequate to the task of defining a satisfactory basis for a democratic socialist politics. This is evident in the circumlocutions in which the PCI has found itself involved in reconciling its day-to-day political practice to the broadest parameters of Marxian analysis. From this, it seems clear that if a radical Terza Via is indeed to emerge, it is unlikely to arise from within the mainstream of Italian Communism.

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La Terza Via

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Local and extra-local orientations in the metropolis

The debate over the community question has generated several perspectives on the sources of ties to the territorial community in modern society. This paper attempts to empirically assess the utility of each model for predicting the number of ties to the local community and extra-local area, using data on voluntary association memberships in Seattle. Results indicate that the community of limited liability perspective is most accurate in predicting the importance of social, economic, and temporal investments for local memberships, and social position for extra-local memberships.     

Religious Identity and Psychological Well-Being Among Newly Orthodox Jewish Women

This article explores the phenomenon of returning to Orthodoxy among Jewish women who have immigrated to Israel. The focus of the article is the effect of this return on their self-identity as they assume a new social position. The sample consists of 72 respondents to an exhaustive questionnaire. The results reported here suggest the difficulty of maintaining prior relationships, resulting in the marginalization of some of these women. This increase in marginality may lead to heightened states of anxiety.     

The Needle and the Damage Done: Research, Action Research, and the Organizational and Social Construction of Health in the “Information Society”

This paper critically reviews the actionresearch paradigm that has evolved over the last 50years within and outside The Tavistock Insitute, withreference to radical shifts in the social construction of medicine and health that are occurring as aresult of the transition toward the informationsociety. The medical domain has been chosen as anappropriate space within which to review the actionresearch paradigm because it bridges both the past andfuture of the Institute. The paper firstly considers theoriginal conception of action research andsociotechnical systems, and the role of consultants, in relation to Foucualt's analysis of powerrelations, social control, and dividingpractices. It then describes and analyzes recentdevelopments in the field of medicine and healthcareservice provision that, on the one hand, offer opportunities forincreased self-management and control by consumers overphysical, social, and emotional self-hoodand on the other could lead to further socialsurveillance and the domination and subjectification of theindividual. Drawing on recent work using innovativemodels of action research in the field of HIV/AIDS, thepaper concludes by discussing ways in which action research could harness developments ininformation and communication technologies to maximizeindividual and collective engagement in new forms oforganizational and social relations.     

Psychosemantics of “One-China” Conception: Fourth-Dimensional Resolution of Taiwan–Mainland Political Deadlock

The political conflicts between Taiwan and the Mainland have progressed, for over 50 years, from the historical hot civil war for the exclusive ownership of one China's territorial sovereignty to the contemporary cold rhetoric circularity around the geopolitical symbolism of the one-China principle. In the process, the United States has been intimately entangled in the disputes in terms of 3 alignment stages--from an unambiguous pro-Taiwan before the 1970s, the ambiguous neutrality in the early 1970s, to the contemporary pro-Mainland China. Despite the fact that during the past 3 decades the United States honored the arms sales and the Taiwan Relations Act commitments in Taiwan's favor, and simultaneously conferred the 3 Nos and 3 communiqués in Mainland China's favor, the cross-Strait tensions have persisted without the prospect of a definitive foreseeable resolution. Further, because of the lack of explicit conception of one China, the United States has to constantly resist the opposing persuasions of the 2 sides, and therefore must continue to rely on the ambiguous dual deterrence strategy for maintaining the dynamics balance over the Taiwan Strait. For such endeavors, the Clinton 4 frameworks and the Bush 5 Taiwan policies have proven to be very effective, but mostly to the extent of assuming a passive role in preventing military confrontations.     

Freud's “Anna O.”: Social work's Bertha Pappenheim

The story of Anna O. has loomed large in psychoanalytic history, but few social workers know that the young woman, who was so influential in the development of Freud's thinking, became a pioneer social worker in Germany. The story of the transformation of the troubled young woman, who was actually Joseph Breuer's patient, is the focus of this paper. In addition, some of the facts of the case are discussed as social constructions. Anna O./ Bertha Pappenheim participated in the creation of the talking cure and eventually went on to be a leading feminist, developer of social programs for women, and social reformer.