The drive to welfare reform has revolutionalized the relationship between the state and the third sector in many countries. But this article argues that, if we are to understand the impact of the changing role of the state on the third sector, then we must first understand the dynamics of the relationship between national and local government. It compares two countries—the U.K. and Italy—where national-local government relations have developed in different directions, and suggests a number of avenues for further analysis of this three-way relationship.

This article, taking as its point of departure that voluntary organizations are of crucial importance in a democracy, views the transformation of the Norwegian voluntary sector through the lenses of what happens within the environmental field. Seeing changes within this field as prototypical for the transformation of the voluntary sector more generally, we start with the organizational level and contrast old versus new environmental organizations. The aim is to ascertain to what extent the newly built organizations are leaving the historically important democratic organizational model. Second, we compare attitudes toward democracy of members of the democratically and nondemocratically built organizations: attitudes both toward democracy within a voluntary organization (internal) and democracy in society (external). Furthermore, we compare these findings with what we find for the population at large. The last section analyzes demographic characteristics of organized environmentalists to see whether a new type of elite, more distanced from the population at large, is emerging in the new and nondemocratically built organizations. The study finds that new organizations are definitely breaking with the democratic organizational model. The support for democracy (internal and external) is comprehensive but not always overwhelming, and there is a tendency in the direction of congruence between organizational structure and individual attitudes. That is, members of democratically built organizations especially value internal but also to some extent external democracy more than members of nondemocratically built organizations. However, even if formal democratic structure and democracy as an absolute and generalized value seems to be under pressure, it does not follow that a new type of elitism is emerging.

Nonprofit research and resulting theory have evolved in a limited context of North American and West European historical experience, culture, and political economy. Recognizing this fact, Estelle James proposes, among other things, a widening of the research arena. This response to her proposals argues that existing studies of nonprofits involved in international development already provide significant comparative evidence that can enrich existing theory. This body of work suggests complementary and alternative research priorities.

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.

This article explores the role of private, nonprofit organizations in a self-governing society. A framework identifying the diverse theories that explain the various types of nonprofit organizations observed in contemporary American society is sketched. This provides a fuller understanding of the varied and complex ways that nonprofit organizations contribute to the institutions of governance.

Involvement in voluntary associations is analyzed from the perspective of questions raised in the debate about civil society. After demarcating the concept of civil society in relation to the community, the market, and the state, expectations are formulated about the negative effects of modernization and individualization on volunteering and the positive effects of volunteering on social capital and public discourse. World Values 1990 data are used for interand intranational analyses. Neither rankings of thirteen Western nations nor in-depth analyses of the U.S., the Netherlands, and Italy support worried reflections about the effects of modernization. The idea that involvement in voluntary associations is conducive to social cohesion and political democracy finds empirical support. Both mere membership of an association and actual volunteering within such an association appear to be important in this respect.

This paper discusses the methodological issues involved in assessing the impact of organizational structure upon the innovative capacity of voluntary organizations. It reports the use of a specific methodological tool—the Aston measures—as an approach to these issues. In addition to the empirical findings reported, this paper argues for these measures as a useful addition to the methodological tool kit of voluntary sector researchers.

Alexis de Tocqueville discusses extensively the phenomenon of civil society. He distinguishes between the competence of the state on the one hand and the proper competences of free associations on the other. Therefore, the competence of the state should be a limited one. However, since free associations can cause social struggle, the government should also have the ability to limit self-regulation of free associations. Moreover, each government needs a social basis that gives support to this policy of intervention. The central question of this article reads as follows: What method of research is Tocqueville employing to discover this social basis. The conclusion is that his method is to discover what mores form the basis needed by a democratic government to pursue its policy of intervention.

In this paper we examine Salamon and Anheier’s characterization and testing of alternative theories of the size and scope of the nonprofit sector in different countries. We identify various nuances and refinements of these theories, and we suggest ways in which their validation through statistical testing can be extended and improved. Finally, we offer additional avenues of research that could productively exploit the important cross-national data set assembled by the Johns Hopkins Project.

This article argues that foreign assistance, as an external force, has played an important role in shaping the local democracy-building process in Poland. The local context, which is omitted from the transition debate, is considered, and the influence that U.S. public donors exercised at the local scale is highlighted. The article claims that the delayed commitment on the part of these donors to local democracy and to the building of self-governing capacities and participatory practices has undermined the stability and effectiveness of the reforms in Poland. It is shown how this process took place through three different constructs: initial lack of direct assistance; the form under which this assistance was provided; and the donors’ selectivity of recipients, both in terms of social groups and of geographic areas. It concludes by outlining areas where changes of assistance delivery should be made both by the donors and recipient communities.

According to the relevant literature, the relationship between government and the private foundation sector in Germany is marked by a “paradigm of conflict” very similar to the one that has often dominated the U.S. discussion of government/ nonprofit relationships in the past. More specifically, scholars often hold that the development of foundations in Germany is largely hampered by an administrative and regulatory climate that weakens rather than strengthens the foundation community. Two main arguments are brought forth in this context: First, the expansion of the state bureaucracy into traditional activity fields of foundations “crowds out” the foundation sector, second, the structure of tax regulations is detrimental to a “sound” development of foundations. However, while these arguments figure prominently in the policy debate, they have neither empirically nor analytically been substantiated as of yet. Borrowing from organizational theory, this article critically evaluates the arguments in the light of available evidence in an effort to contribute to a better understanding of foundations in an international context.

Lester Salamon and Helmut Anheier’s “Social Origins of Civil Society: Explaining the Nonprofit Sector Cross-Nationally” offers a thorough cross-national quantitative analysis of the correlates of nonprofit-sector size, composition, and sources of funding. The first study of its kind, it is remarkable in both its theoretical ambition and empirical scope. Still, this research is plagued by problems that affect almost all research of this type: small numbers, poor measures, vague theories, a preponderance of cross-sectional data, and so on. Suggestions for improving the research include: (1) disaggregating the definition of the nonprofit sector to address criticisms from both the right and the left; (2) adopting a multidimensional approach to assessment of the nonprofit sector, to deal with its great heterogeneity; (3) devoting more attention to possible nonlinear relationships; and (4) casting a wider theoretical net in the effort to build a convincing “social origins” perspective. In the end, Salamon and Anheier may be forced to devote more effort to qualitative analysis of specific sectors to demonstrate the explanatory power of the social origins perspective.

The 1995 European System of Accounts (1995 ESA), an adapted version of the United Nations System of National Accounts (1993 SNA), will be applied in most European countries. This research note shows that the empirical knowledge of the nonprofit sector is not improved in this change. We first review the treatment of the nonprofit organizations in 1968 SNA, and then discuss the 1993 SNA and 1995 ESA approaches, which do not clear up many conceptual difficulties. The classification of the private nonprofit institutions serving households by the French statistical office is also presented and criticized. A way forward through the use of a satellite account system is proposed.

The growing prominence given to charity trustees’ strategy-making roles and responsibilities is encouraging reassessment of the values and purposes of trusteeship in Britain. This occurs against a background of an increasingly professionalized and managerialist charity sector. Trustees are seen, in public policy terms, as a homogeneous and leadership-oriented group, while some charity managers aspire to or are already fulfilling leadership roles. This research note reviews these developments, considering trustees’ strategy-making and controlling functions, and the nature of the relations between charity staffs and trustees. It describes the development of a tentative typology by the authors, characterizing trustees’ approaches to their roles, as a means of illustrating the heterogeneous rather than homogeneous nature of the overall charity trustee body. The research process, leading toward the typology’s development, is outlined and critiqued. Reflections on the value of the typology are given and possible future developments in trusteeship are considered. The authors consider that those trustees willing to remain in role are likely to adopt custodial rather than entrepreneurial approaches to their trusteeship. Such a role is likely to be increasingly at odds with the role sought or adopted by senior managers in some charities, and also with the proactive model of trusteeship that is being encouraged by the regulatory systems for British charities.

This article presents a case study of how members of three funding organizations evaluated the same two agencies in Canada. The research on which the article is based sheds light on the “organizational effectiveness” construct, on the ways in which the evaluators use it to reach conclusions on agency effectiveness, and the relation between these conclusions and funders’ decisions on agency funding. The authors describe a framework for understanding evaluation processes, describe three funders in terms of this framework, set out predominant patterns in evaluation processes the funders used, and show the effects of these patterns from the agency’s perspective. They then discuss the implications of the findings for agency managers and how the findings relate to theories of organization.

Responding to comments on “Social Origins of Civil Society, ” an article published in this issue of Voluntas, this article focuses on three critical issues that underlie cross-national theory building and theory testing in the field of nonprofit studies: the issue of definitions, the challenge of operationalizing key theoretical concepts, and the nature of the tests available to verify results. Regarding the first, the article defends the structural-operational definition used in The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project against suggestions by the commentators that it either be expanded or narrowed, arguing that the alternative is either to broaden the focus beyond what is manageable or to make the basic yardstick vulnerable to changing political and policy shifts—a sure prescription for confusion. Regarding the question of operationalization, the article concedes that better measures of some key features of prevailing theories might be imaginable, but, since few of these are available, it cautions against letting the best become the enemy of the good in cross-national nonprofit theory testing. Finally, the article finds, in suggestions that multivariate techniques be used in testing various nonprofit theories, confirmation of its central argument that a contextual analysis of the sort embodied in the authors’ “social origins” approach is needed to come to terms with the reality of the nonprojit sector cross-nationally. Taken together these comments underline the need to continue the land of systematic data gathering and theory testing that the authors have undertaken, to utilize an interdisciplinary approach, and to link the study of the nonprofit sector to social analysis more generally.

This article focuses on the close linkage between domestic philanthropy and commerce at the end of the early modem period, and the sophistication with which well-connected evangelical institutions transcended the confines of established religion and territorial boundaries. Use of a large set of primary and secondary sources that are relatively unknown in the history of the voluntary sector permits the examination and analysis of several notable aspects of the Francke Orphanage Foundations, an 18th-century central European institution of evangelical reform and colonial mission. Particular attention is given to the innovative efforts of their founder, August Hermann Francke, to secure an independent financial base for his institutional goals. These goals, which were supported in large part by members of the German nobility and of merchants in the imperial cities, included but were not limited to reform of charity care and education. From the outset, a close network of personal supporters and evangelical institutions that extended throughout Protestant Europe proved essential for both trade and evangelical mission; this network permitted expansion into Russia and the Baltic provinces, Hungary, the Near East and India, and eventually the British North American colonies.