The post-Cold War period has been a time of rapid change in the international system. One major shift is a dramatic increase in the demands placed upon the United Nations. This increased reliance on the UN suggests that there may be a shift in opportunities for this and other international institutions to have a greater effect on the dynamics of global politics than was possible under the bi-polar system of the past. What are the implications of these changes for nongovernmental actors in the global system? We focus on a subset of international non-governmental organisations called transnational social movement organisations (TSMOs), and begin to document their forms and activities in the global arena. In what ways are TSMOs similar to or different from national social movement organisations, and how do TSMOs organise to engage in transnational political efforts? How do TSMOs interact with international institutions? Our analysis consists of detailed, systematic comparisons among seven TSMOs in the human rights, environmental, peace and development issue arenas, including: Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Oxfam, Peace Brigades International and War Resisters International. We examine five dimensions of variation: founding and mission; leadership structure; membership; resources; and tactics. This work builds on the earlier work of Dennis Young (1992) and helps to inform future research in this area.

Northern NGOs live with an increasing level of insecurity and change. Governmental pressures to professionalise contribute to bureaucratisation, while inadequate overheads, an outdated project approach and lengthy approval procedures work against professionalism. Although they spend tens of millions of dollars annually through NGOs, few OECD governments have taken evaluation seriously. Northern NGO survival, therefore, has been largely de-linked from performance. More fundamental is the growing identity crisis that Northern NGOs have in relation to their increasingly effective Southern counterparts.

Recession and faltering public support have pushed governments into reduced aid budgets and new concepts of accountability, participation and the role of ‘civil society’. Adding to the burden these shifts place on NGOs, many governments now deal directly with Southern NGOs. Many governments have also restricted their matching or ‘responsive’ NGO funding programmes, while providing massive funding increases - on highly favourable terms - for emergency and refugee work. Most OECD governments have also initiated special funds for AIDS, women, democracy and special geographical troublespots, channelling NGOs towards governmental priorities.

Some basic principles are proposed for remedying the problems and for treating NGOs as important elements of civil society rather than as delivery mechanisms for governments.

The restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, serves as an important study in the history of philanthropy in the United States. Williamsburg demonstrates how the investments of philanthropists such as the Rockefeller family can be used to subtly alter Americans’ perceptions of their past. This manipulation resulted in the promotion of the Rockefellers’ ideological interpretation of history at Williamsburg. This history stressed the role of Williamsburg as a monument to the ideals of Americanism: democracy, republicanism and individual achievement. Through times of domestic and international crisis, from the Red Scare of the 1920s through the Cold War of the 1950s, the Rockefeller family held up Williamsburg as a beacon to which Americans could look as a steadying force. In doing so, the Rockefellers created a past which never truly existed. They downplayed the roles of women and blacks, who were all but ignored in the early presentation of the town, in favour of the aristocrats of the age: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and George Wythe. The presentation which emerged during the restoration's first half-century was one that failed to acknowledge the roles played by less prominent groups and over-accentuated the importance of a small minority of illustrious townspeople.

Employment patterns in various sectors of retailing have received much research attention in recent years, and investigation into charity volunteering is prolific. There is, however, little academic research to date into employment issues in charity retailing or reference to the volunteers who work in charity shops.

This has been a neglected topic, left in the hands of those with particular charity interests rather than an academic topic in its own right. This paper looks at the profile of the charity shop volunteer and raises the issues of future changes in technology and competition which might have an impact on current volunteers.

This article discusses two aspects of the interconnected social and economic features of voluntary associations. First, it characterises the transformation processes of voluntary associations which make them more similar to bureaucratic business organisations. The article's second endeavour is to discuss how changes in the economic features of an association have an impact on its social elements. The key argument is that changes in economic features of a voluntary association have important negative effects on its social basis. The analysis focuses on how changes in the mode of financing of an association affect the solidarity of its members.