Top-Down Civic Projects Are Not Grassroots Associations: How The Differences Matter in Everyday Life |
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Authors: | Nina Eliasoph |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Sociology, University of Southern California, Kaprielian Hall 352, 3620 South Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2539, USA |
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Abstract: | Research on civic associations blurs an important distinction between the unfunded, informal, ongoing associations that theorists
like de Tocqueville described versus current participatory democracy projects that are funded by the state and large nongovernmental
organizations, are open to all, and are usually short-term. Based on a long-term ethnography of youth programs in the United
States, this paper shows that entities like these, which participants and researchers alike often called “volunteer” or “civic”
groups, operate very differently from traditional civic groups. The ethnography systematically details prevalent tensions
that actors face when they try to cultivate the civic spirit in these increasingly typical organizations.
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Keywords: | Participatory democracy Civic associations Hybrid governance Empowerment Volunteering United States |
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