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.

In the international literature on the third sector, the Scandinavian countries have tended to be portrayed, in a sociological sense, as an ‘ideal type’ of society in which the state has taken over the obligations of voluntary and non-governmental organisations. With this special issue of Voluntas, we utilise the first comprehensive overview of the third sector in Scandinavia to challenge this image. This prima facie impression of complete state dominance is substituted with another picture in which the role of the third sector is much more active and important.

Alhough women often played a central role in the creation of non-profit organisations through their donations of time, money and material possessions, their efforts have received little systematic attention from students of the non-profit sector, particularly outside the United States. This special issue of Voluntas traces the ties between philanthropy and women's social, economic and political roles in Argentina, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, India and Australia. Written as part of an international collaborative study co-ordinated by the Center for the Study of Philanthropy at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, these essays test a variety of theoretical models for assessing the significance of philanthropic activities in empowering disadvantaged groups and fostering the growth of civil society.

This article focuses on the history of voluntary associations in Argentina over the past 200 years. Argentine voluntary associations have their roots in the alliance of the Catholic church, the state and the country's elites, in which women played major roles. The charitable stage can be divided into two phases: the first (1600-1899) was encouraged mainly by the church, in particular through the Sisters of Charity; the second (1820-1940) took shape under state patronage in a period of centralisation and secularisation. The Society of Beneficence, a quasi-public institution run by wealthy women, emerged as the most important institution for public assistance until the formation of the Eva Perón Foundation, which became the paradigmatic form of social assistance in the 1940s. Nevertheless, the approach adopted by the Foundation differed very little from those of its precursors. Within this framework the current social development model attempts to reconfigure the relationships between the public institutions and civil society.

Although scholarship on the ‘third sector’ has successfully integrated Jewish history and the contemporary Jewish scene (including the State of Israel) into its overall agenda, the Zionist movement in Western Europe and the United States, before 1933, is largely absent. This is mainly because, almost until the present, spokespersons for the movement have denied that Zionism is a charity. It may seem obvious that Zionism relied on the tradition of Jews giving to charity, yet this fact is barely reflected in the movement's historiography. Zionism's appeals to Western-acculturated Jews show that many characteristics of Jewish philanthropic societies were essential to the life of the movement. This article explores the institutional strategies which drew on the charitable instincts of Zionism's constituents, especially the creation of the Jewish National Fund (1901) and the Palestine Foundation Fund (1921). The prominence of these bodies led to much of the success, as well as the frustrations of the movement, before the Nazi rise to power.

This article argues that it is possible to identify a particular Scandinavian third sector model. In contrast to what might generally be expected in view of the relatively huge public sectors of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the third sector in this model is neither small nor insignificant. Its constituent traits are rooted in history, in popular movements and in trust-based mutual dependency between third sector organisations and public authorities. Though challenged by recent developments, this model is still a cornerstone of the Scandinavian welfare state.

In Scale and Scope, A.D. Chandler explores the role of management in shaping growth and competitiveness in industrialising nations. Chandler views managers as reacting to technological and economic change rather than initiating it, giving little attention to the extent to which growth of modern management and corporate capacities were tied to the emergence of parallel structures in government and society, and the important national differences in the role of public and private sectors in the process. His failure to offer a broad and encompassing paradigm of organisational growth and change produces a celebration of ‘American exceptionalism’ and corporate bigness rather than a genuinely comparative analysis.

Religion played a major role in directing the philanthropy of Irish women in the nineteenth century. The most extensive systems of welfare were provided by Catholic female religious communities, but substantial and extensive charity was also provided by Protestant denominations. There was much rivalry between Catholic and Protestant charity workers, particularly in work relating to orphaned and destitute children. While the denominational basis of charity work prevented women of different religious persuasions from working together as philanthropists, lay Catholic women were profoundly affected by the limits placed on their activities by nuns. Lay Catholic women had no major tradition of organising in institutions or societies for charity work and, in consequence, the experience of organising for social change came later to Catholic women than it did to Protestant women. Catholic women were slow not only to join reform organisations but also to campaign for changes in social legislation or to demand suffrage.

If Sweden has been considered at all within the voluntary research tradition, it is mainly in terms of providing a state-dominated contrast to countries where the sector is said to flourish. This article questions this rather one-sided picture of Sweden, which seems to rest on weak empirical grounds, especially if the voluntary sector as a whole is analysed. The main focus of the article is, however, on social services. It is shown that, from a historical perspective, co-operation between the state and the voluntary sector seems to be a distinctive feature of Sweden, even during periods of government take-over of voluntary activities. Today the relations between the voluntary sector and the state appear to be changing to a situation in which associations are taking part in the production of welfare services to a larger extent than heretofore.

This article argues that Alfred Chandler's analysis of the British firm cannot be transposed to the very different context of non-profit organisations in Britain. Both in relation to charitable non-profit organisations and mutual benefit organisations, Chandler's theory of the development of firms does not help explain organisational development. The main thrust of the argument is that the explanation for the smaller size of charitable non-profits in Britain than in America is largely institutional and partly socio-cultural; the explanation does not lie in any failure in Britain to adopt new techniques of management and organisation. With mutual benefit non-profits, a rather different account is presented. ‘Mutuals’ which had a strong fraternal element were relatively more successful in Britain than in America, although there is less difference between the two countries with regard to ‘non-fraternal’ mutuals. Once again, it is argued that institutional and socio-cultural factors — rather than the factors identified by Chandler — account for this.

Using the data from a survey undertaken in the United States in 1992, this article examines the effects of altruism, self-interest and social ties on motivations to give and volunteer, as well as the effects of volunteering on definitions of life goals. Social ties with non-profit organisations were good predictors of both the value of charitable contributions and the time volunteered for charitable causes. The level of prior philanthropic activism and social connections with philanthropic institutions had an effect on life goals. Altruism and the desire for self-improvement had effects on volunteering, but not on giving. Utilitarian motives (expected career advancement) had no observable effects on volunteering or giving. Based on those findings, a general microstructural model of philanthropic behaviour is proposed.

The purpose of writing Scale and Scope was to examine, within the historical context of national and international economies, the similarities and differences in the evolution of large-scale for-profit industrial enterprises in the three leading industrial nations, namely the United States, Great Britain and Germany. The study covers three-quarters of a century, from the time of the Second Industrial Revolution of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, which was driven by new capital-using and scale-dependent technologies, until the coming of World War II, when the direct and drastic impact of those technologies became relatively stabilised and the micro- and macro-economic environment critically altered. During these years, and still today, the capital-intensive industries have played a central role in driving technological advance for the growth of global as well as national economies, and these industries have been dominated by managerial enterprises.

Dutch women have historically been philanthropists, with an emphasis on the giving of time. This article describes several strategies in which Dutch women have used philanthropy in different periods of time and in different social situations to widen their scope of action for themselves. The giving of time was partly related to the burgher ideal of domestic family culture, in which women were not supposed to join the labour force but instead become caring mothers and spick-and- span housewives. Another factor was the relative prosperity of the nation: the income of the male breadwinner was enough to support the whole household. To maintain social contacts and to gain prestige without abrogating social, religious and community norms, married women turned to philanthropic and volunteer organisations, especially in social services, welfare and health care. Many of them found a life-time occupation in volunteering. They created a parallel power structure in the public sphere. More recently, giving of time has become a means of gaining work experience. Volunteering has become an instrument to accomplish women's liberation, by building women's organisations, and interest and self-help groups.

This article focuses on the growth and change that the Norwegian non-governmental international aid field has undergone since the Second World War. Questions are raised on the relationships and borders between the organisations involved and the government. What are the reasons for the apparent closeness of government to non-govemmental organisations? A short theoretical discussion is followed by an empirical description of the Norwegian (and Scandinavian) non-govemmental landscape’. This description is followed by a discussion of government policy towards these organisations in Norway (and also, to a certain extent, the other Scandinavian countries), and in conclusion some questions are raised on their future role.

This article presents the results of a survey of grant monitoring in 170 UK charities. The monitoring and evaluation process is modelled and the extent to which donors follow this is explored. Although over 70 per cent of donors monitored grants, a much smaller percentage proceeded to evaluate results. Reasons for this and an indication of how the processes are carried out are presented.

The way in which kibbutz members define voluntarism, their attitudes toward it, the volunteering they do, their reasons for doing it, and the helping mechanisms and obstacles that the kibbutz offers were explored in a sample of four Israeli kibbutzim. This is a preliminary study of the way a unique society deals with a well-known field. Between-kibbutz differences were found mainly between the religious kibbutz and the others. No satisfactory explanations for between-person differences with regard to volunteering could be found, and it is hypothesised that the difference may lie in orientation to traditional kibbutz ideology.

This article explores how the Rockefeller Foundation's hookworm campaigns, sponsorship of local sanitary units and involvement in public health education in Mexico shaped the conceptualisation and practice of public health during the decades following the Mexican Revolution. A 1923 hookworm agreement set the terms of the relationship, minimising the Foundation's financial commitment while maximising its administrative control. In establishing rural health units, the Foundation adapted to local conditions without compromising scientific public health by ingeniously incorporating midwives while shunning other traditional healers. When President Lázaro Cárdenas's socialist politics threatened the Rockefeller model of public health in the 1930s, delicate tactics enabled the Foundation to overcome these challenges. For the Mexican government, the overriding goals of modernisation and progress required an acceptance of Rockefeller pressure and scientific expertise. The special status granted the Rockefeller Foundation, its political, administrative, educational and financial strategies, and its institutional flexibility enabled it to influence profoundly the development of the Mexican public health system.

In terms of finances, the state and non-profit organisations in Germany are closely interrelated; philanthropy has until recently played only a minor role. However, with the financial crisis of the German welfare state, philanthropy and fundraising have started to play more important and more visible roles since the early 1990s. Yet most women's organisations so far have neglected to tap or to develop private funding resources to a larger extent. While traditional women's associations still predominantly rely upon volunteerism, autonomous women's projects are heavily dependent upon government money. There is a huge untapped potential for philanthropy in Germany in general, and for women's causes in particular, and several examples show that many women are prepared to support women's causes when they are asked to do so. To foster philanthropy by and for women in the future will mean a strengthening of civil society in Germany.

This article analyses the changes in the voluntary sector in Denmark at the local level, and compares associations in the ‘cultural field’ with those in the ‘social field’. The analyses, which are primarily based on research conducted in 1993, show that the voluntary sector changed significantly during the 1980s and the 1990s. First, over a third of the associations were established after 1979, and this has resulted in changes in the overall composition of the sector. Traditional value-oriented associations and associations that work for others have declined in relative terms, while narrow-interest associations that work for the members themselves are increasing. Second, the number of associations that are based and operate in a clearly-defined local area has declined. Third, despite professionalisation in some types of associations, more people than ever before are engaged in voluntary work in associations. Fourth, while public subsidies to the voluntary associations have increased, this has not changed the fundamental ‘political autonomy’ of the associations. Fifth, even though there are great differences in the political context of which the ‘cultural field’ associations and ‘social field’ associations are part, the associations in the two fields have many common features.