Does Membership in Civil Society Organizations Foster Social Integration? The Case of Danish Voluntary Sport Organizations

ABSTRACT

Voluntary organizations are generally perceived as important arenas in which social integration can be fostered. There is, however, no consensus on the meaning of such integration, and the empirical evidence for the claim is lacking. This article studies social integration within voluntary sport organizations, which make up a significant element of civil society in most Western societies. The article provides a theoretical framework well suited for the study of social integration, which differentiates members according to their levels of social interaction and emotional bonding across four community types: Strong, pragmatic, mediated, and weak. When applying this framework to the case of Danish sport organizations, the distribution of members among the four community types indicates that, although sport organizations are important arenas for the development of social integration, there is also a large minority of members who do not experience social integration. This article shows that both individual characteristics linked to members and organizational characteristics linked to sport organizations exert significant influence on the level and nature of social integration. Jointly, the results demonstrate that there are grounds to reassess the general conception that sport organizations are important arenas in which social integration can be fostered.     

Community development intermediary systems in the United States: Origins,evolution, and functions

Abstract

Acting between the forceful capital market and the state, community development intermediaries are finding ways to assist resource‐poor community development organizations to increase production volume and to gain access to a wider capital and political market.

This article presents a brief historical review of how the intermediary system originated and how it has evolved into different large‐scale models since the 1960s. The philosophies and programs of three major intermediary organizations—the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, The Enterprise Foundation, and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation—are considered. The article concludes by recognizing the contributions of intermediaries while raising issues with their accountability and future direction.     

Corporatism and Social Trust: Bringing Voluntary Organizations ‘Back In’

Abstract

In analyses of the sources of social trust, it has been found that voluntary organizations have no effect upon it. Such analyses have overlooked the role of civil society organizations as intermediary structures between the citizen and the state. This article explores how organizations, linked together in corporatist networks, help generate trust. Two mechanisms for this are pointed out. First, in societies with strong corporatist networks conflicts between employers and employees are perceived as less strong than in societies with weak corporatist networks. Second, as societies with strong corporatist networks also are more egalitarian, conflicts between rich and poor are also perceived as less pronounced than in societies with weak corporatist networks. This analysis provides definite indications that the perception of conflicts between workers and managers, and the perception of conflicts between rich and poor are intermediary variables between corporatism and social trust, and thus supports the hypothesis that voluntary organizations, through corporatist networks of negotiation and coordination, contribute to the growth of social trust.     

Transformation or Bureaucratization? The changing role of community representation in local strategic partnerships in England

Abstract

The debate about the need to build social capital and to engage local communities in public policy has become a central issue in many advanced liberal societies and developing countries. In many countries new forms of governance have emerged out of a growing realization that representative democracy by itself is no longer sufficient. One of the most significant public policy trends in the United Kingdom has been the involvement of community organizations and their members in the delivery of national policy, mediated through local systems of governance and management. One such policy area is urban regeneration. Central Government now requires local authorities in England to set up Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) to bring together stakeholders who can prepare Community Strategies and deliver social and economic programmes which target areas of deprivation. This paper reviews the key institutional processes which must be addressed, such as representation, accountability and transformation. It then investigates three very different examples of LSPs based on interviews with key representatives. The paper concludes that political commitments to community engagement in civil society are always mediated through existing institutional arrangements. Thus attempts to change deep-seated political structures and power relationships require a commitment to increase representation as well as to transform the practices and repertoires of deliberation and action.     

Empowering Members of Ethnic Organisations: Tracing the Political Integration Potential of Immigrant Associations in Stockholm

The voluminous participation literature notwithstanding, knowledge is still scarce on how voluntary associations more precisely provide their members with politically significant human and social capital. This article focuses on the capacities of immigrant organisations to promote the political integration of ethnic minority members. Analysing a unique dataset, based on face-to-face interviews with representatives of 106 organisations of four different immigrant groups in Greater Stockholm, the study empirically investigates what the authors refer to as an association's ' political integration potential ' (PIP) – the possibility of a given ethnic association to promote the inclusion of its members in the political community of the host society. As elements of PIP, the article examines associational-level political activity as well as support and mobilisation of individual members, and analyses how the former may be induced by the latter. Furthermore, the article tries to explain why some types of organisations do better than others in these respects. It finds that size and diversification of associations have an important impact on PIP, thus explaining observed differences between associations of the ethnic categories included in this study.     

Place,Time, and Philanthropy: Exploring Geographic Mobility and Philanthropic Engagement

America is a nation of movers, and this has implications for public and nonprofit managers who rely on donations and volunteers to increase the capacity of nonprofits and to strengthen local communities. This article explores the impact of time and place on philanthropic engagement, focusing on how three aspects of community—sense of belonging, social connections, and regional culture—are related to volunteering and giving to local organizations. The authors find that geographic mobility affects philanthropic engagement. Drawing on a survey of active older Americans, the authors find that three community factors —sense of community, social networks, and regional cultures— are related to one or both types of philanthropic behavior. The authors conclude by offering thoughts for future research and practice.     

Eleven theses on markets and civil society1

Abstract

Civic engagement, through voluntary associational membership, is touted as the keystone of community. It is within these groups where people get a chance to come together to form the necessary social network connections needed to accomplish collective endeavors. Civic engagement can have a bridging effect, bringing disparate people and communities together. Civic engagement can also have a bonding effect on members, which builds strong in-group ties, putting the membership at odds with outsiders. This article examines the relationship between voluntary associations and social network diversity. Since civic engagement is considered a resource, vis-à-vis social capital (where more is always better), the relationship between social network diversity and multiple group membership is isolated. The type of group is also taken into consideration, because the nature of some organizations, e.g., religious and neighborhood associations, can prove an impediment to diversity. Using the national sample of the ‘Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, 2000,’ I find that membership in voluntary civic organizations has a positive relationship with social network diversity in the United States. Multiple group membership, as well as participation in neighbourhood associations and arts and book clubs, shared a positive relationship with social network diversity.     

Involvement in voluntary associations in North America and Western Europe: Trends and correlates 1981–2000

Abstract

There is no lack of studies that point at discomforting trends in community life and citizens' social and political involvement in contemporary society. According to various indicators, Americans have become increasingly disconnected from their families, friends, neighbours and associations, leading to a decline of civic community and social trust and to more individual unhappiness. Similar developments are supposed to take place elsewhere. In this article we use data from the European and World Values Studies to address, for North America and Western Europe, (1) trends regarding voluntary associations, social trust, political involvement and happiness in the 1981–2000 period; (2) changing patterns and types of involvement in associations; and (3) macro and micro relationships between this involvement and political involvement, social trust and happiness. We find no general decline in these traits, no trend towards more passive membership, and only mixed evidence for positive connections between involvement, trust and happiness.     

Understanding multi-purpose hybrid voluntary organizations: The contributions of theories on civil society,social movements and non-profit organizations

Abstract

The paper offers a theoretical framework to study the conditions that lead to the emergence of multi-purpose hybrid voluntary organizations and the factors that influence their ability to mobilize resources and enlist commitment. These organizations are characterized by four interrelated attributes: (a) they set out as their mission to uphold and promote cultural values that are typically at variant with dominant and institutionalized values; (b) they offer services to members and the public that express their distinct values, using the services as a model and catalyst for social change; (c) in addition to their instrumental goals, they aim to meet the expressive and social identity needs of their members by promoting a collective identity; and (d) they evolve into hybrid organizations by having multiple purposes—combining to various degrees goals of value change, service provision and mutual-aid. Because they deliberately combine features of volunteer-run associations, social movements and non-profit service organizations, we articulate a theoretical framework that melds concepts and propositions from the various theoretical perspectives used to study each of these organizational forms. We argue that the expanded theoretical framework offers a more comprehensive and dynamic view of civil society and a better perspective to the study of third sector organizations.     

Fragmented control: Governing contentious labor organizations in China

How does an authoritarian state govern contentious civil society and what are the effects on grassroots mobilization? This article theorizes the relationship between repression and mobilization by examining the case of informal labor organizations in South China that threaten social stability. Findings based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork inside these organizations suggest that the central state's mandate to maintain social stability is refracted through the interests and capabilities of local agencies. This results in “fragmented control”: divergent, even conflicting, forms of state governance over civil society. Local authorities work at cross‐purposes by simultaneously repressing, co‐opting, and neglecting underground organizing. Fragmented control generates political uncertainty on the part of activists and induces them to engage in “censored entrepreneurialism”—a set of tactical adaptations characterized by a mixture of self‐censorship and entrepreneurial experimentation.     

It is not just who you know: Dominant knowledge and civic participation

Abstract

Civic participation and its role in increasing social capital is touted as a key element in the regeneration of urban communities. This approaches assumes that urban communities are homogenized collective interests and misses the diversity of interests that capitalize on the growth of institutionally supplied social capital brought about through redevelopment projects. This article examines the participatory processes in a Southern California urban community using social and cultural capital frameworks to show that resident participation is a classed and racialized project that privileges those with dominant knowledge, cultural awareness and language skills. The field of contestation, or the political space developed by institutional players for urban regeneration also plays a key role in determining who participates and how decisions are made. While civic participation is presented as a process that is democratic and open to all, this article argues that participation exists within a cultural context that much like the ‘hidden curriculum’ in education, privileges the knowledge of dominant groups.     

Articulating language oppression: colonialism,coloniality and the erasure of Tibet’s minority languages

ABSTRACT

Roche’s article discusses ‘language oppression’ as a form of domination that is coherent with other forms of oppression along the lines of ‘race’, nation, colour and ethnicity. Scholars have defined language oppression as the ‘enforcement of language loss by physical, mental, social and spiritual coercion’. It is part of an evolving suite of concepts from linguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology that examines issues of language discrimination, or ‘linguicism’. Roche explores one aspect of linguicism—language erasure—and how it relates to language oppression, focusing on Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). He examines how language oppression is produced through practices of erasure: the ways in which certain populations and their languages are systematically rendered discursively invisible. He argues that the erasure of certain languages in the Tibetan context is systematically reproduced by two otherwise opposed political projects: the colonial project of the PRC state; and the international Tibet movement that seeks to resist it. He refers to the contingent cooperation between these two opposed projects as ‘articulated oppression’. In concluding the article he examines how the disarticulation of this oppression is a necessary condition for the emancipation of Tibet’s minority languages, and discusses the broader significance of this study for understanding language oppression, and its relation to other forms of oppression.     

Immigrant-Serving Non-profit Voter Mobilization in Off-Cycle Elections: An Institutional Explanation of Differential Political Participation Patterns

Abstract

Immigrants in the USA tend to vote less than other groups, and immigrants vote at even lower levels during off-cycle elections. The aim of this article is to analyse whether these same patterns can be observed in the electoral activities of non-profit organizations that represent immigrants. I argue for a theory of reflective non-profit representation to explain how immigrant-serving organizations make decisions about electoral activities. By analysing original survey data collected in 2012 and 2013, the article finds that immigrant-serving non-profits are less likely to mobilize immigrants in off-cycle compared to on-cycle elections, and less likely to mobilize voters than organizations serving other communities. These findings suggest that immigrant voting could increase if non-profits increased their political involvement, reimagined their identities to include politics as a part of their mission, and generated new revenues to support these activities.     

Gated communities in America: Walling out the world?

Abstract

Gated communities—enclaves of homes surrounded by walls, often with security guards—are becoming increasingly popular in America. This article introduces and analyzes findings of a Fannie Mae Foundation—sponsored panel on gated communities held at the 1997 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning annual conference. A key finding is that many people choose to reside in gated communities because they believe that such places reduce risk, ranging from the mundane (e.g., unwanted social exchanges) to the high stakes (e.g., declining home values).

In many ways, gated communities deliver what they promise, by providing an effective defense against daily intrusions. However, some of their benefits entail a high social cost. A sense of community within gated communities comes at the expense of a larger identity with the region outside. Gated communities manifest and reinforce an inward‐focused community culture, where the tension between the individual and society tilt toward self‐interest.     

Internationalized Policy Environments and Policy Network Analysis

The importance of horizontal coordinating governance arrangements in the internationalized policy domains that occur more frequently in the present globalizing era justifies building further on middle-level theories that draw on the policy community/policy network concepts. This reconceptualization, however, requires an explicit integration of policy paradigms and political ideas into policy community theory and careful attention to the differential impact of varying governance patterns in internationalized policy domains. This article pursues these objectives beginning with a review of existing literature on policy communities and policy networks. Next, drawing on recent research on policy paradigms and political ideas, it suggests how policy community concepts might be adapted for the study of policy change. Four types of internationalized policy environments are then identified and their implications for policy communities and policy networks are assessed. The article concludes by introducing the concept of policy community mediators and discussing how they might shape the relationships among multiple policy communities.     

Between ballots and bullets: elections and citizenship in and beyond the nation-state

This article approaches electoral acts and performances as central sites for the negotiation of citizenship relations. I argue that, in order to understand how these relationships are shaped, we must attend to governmental actors beyond the nation-state, from trade unions to criminal organizations. Focusing on the case of Jamaica, I show how non-state actors have come to play a central role in hybrid forms of governance, shaping citizens' allegiances to multiple, overlapping political communities. How are campaigning and voting affected by such multiple allegiances? What new understandings of citizenship can we develop if we take the role of non-state actors in the electoral process seriously? I suggest that we should study elections as a site where citizenship – understood here in its broad sense of membership of a political community – can develop both within and beyond the nation-state.     

Credit and social capital: The community development potential of U.S. microenterprise programs

Abstract

This article looks at the community‐building activities of microenterprise programs. These programs build community primarily by creating networks that build social capital. Microenterprise programs build two types of networks—networks within programs that typically involve borrowers and networks between programs and other institutions. The article examines (1) the ways in which microenterprise programs motivate the creation of both types of networks; (2) the extent to which these networks are embedded within program structures; and (3) the process by which network formation leads to the accumulation of social capital.

The networks of relationships that Women's Initiative and Working Capital have catalyzed, both within and between programs, build social capital in important ways. The trust building that intraprogram relationships accomplish and the alteration of norms that interprogram relationships accomplish motivate the creation of networks that build social capital. These changes are not sufficient to turn poor communities around, but they are important first steps.     

Transforming Scotland's Public-sector Housing through Community Ownership: The Reterritorialisation of Housing Governance?

In recent decades, UK public-sector housing has increasingly been problematised, with government solutions focusing on modernising the sector by transferring ownership of the housing from the public to the voluntary sector through stock transfer. This promises to transform the organisation of social housing by devolving control from local government to housing organisations located within, and governed by, the communities in which they are based. The Scottish Executive's national housing policy of community ownership is the epitome of this governmental rationale par excellence. Drawing upon empirical research on the 2003 Glasgow housing stock transfer, this paper argues that, whilst community ownership is underpinned by governmental rationales that seek to establish community as the new territory of social housing governance, the realisation of these political ambitions has been marred by emergent central–local conflict. Paradoxically, the fragmentation of social housing through the break-up of municipal provision, co-exists with continued political centralisation within the state apparatus.     

The Erosion of Party Politics in Britain

This article looks at the erosion of democratic practice enacted by "New" Labour in Britain under the leadership of Tony Blair. Building on the internal reforms of the 1980s, the process of Labour Party "modernization" has created an exclusive, top-down managerial style of leadership. This type of party leadership and management has far-reaching implications for British politics more generally, not least the role of political parties. The current crisis of the Conservatives and the destruction of representative democracy within the Labour Party pose serious questions regarding the medium-term future of parties as voluntary membership organizations. These changes are placed in the context of a possible longer-term transformation of British political structures in order to exchange the long-established administration of the Conservative Party for a new type of governmental machinery. The aim is not a new "traditional" party of government, but a partyless formation built around a dominant central presidential figure and his office—a change which necessitates abolishing the Labour Party and social democracy as they currently exist. It is argued that this anticipated remedy to a protracted crisis of the British state accords closely to the requirements of neoliberal economic management, while drawing upon developments in the wider global environment. However, if this is to succeed, Blair's "modernizing" tendency needs to be able to articulate a coherent ideology that strikes a popular chord. Thus far, Blair's managerial approach to politics may have scored a few points against the old party ideologies, but it has also undermined attempts to promote an alternative ideology—even one of a "partyless" nature.     

Cartographies of Transformation in Mostar and Cape Town: Mapping as a Methodology in Divided Cities

ABSTRACT

All cities, as heterogenous spaces, are divided. However, conflict, in various forms can create cities which are monikered as ‘divided cities’. The divisions in these cities involve the segregation of communities and entrenchment of social and political divides. Through case studies situated in the spatially divided cities of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Cape Town, South Africa, this article demonstrates local resistance to top-down divisions. Theoretically and methodologically, this article contributes an understanding of mapping as a methodology which can materialise the spatial agency of local actors and can contribute to more inclusive memory work and reconstruction.