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This volume is a collection of original essays prepared by colleagues, collaborators, and former students on the occasion of Helmut K. Anheier’s 65th birthday and retirement from the University of Heidelberg. An internationally recognized pioneer of nonprofit and civil society studies, Anheier focused his work on providing clarity around (1) civil society, local and global, observing its origins and trajectory and developing theories to explain it; (2) the nonprofit sector and institutions within and extending from it, including nonprofit organizations, philanthropy and social investment; and (3) culture as it relates to democracy and back to civil society. The essays in this volume refer to these concepts and position them in the context of developments over the last two to three decades. The volume is arranged in three sections. The first section comprises essays that elucidate concepts and probe theories in the field. The second section presents chapters discussing current global challenges and trends in the focal areas. The third and final section then comprises country and regional case studies illustrating important aspects of the global challenges or theoretical issues of the two preceding sections. A fascinating and up-to-date overview of key issues and trends in civil society and nonprofit research by an international collection of eminent scholars in these fields, this book will be attractive to civil society and nonprofit sector researchers as well as a broader academic community of political scientists, sociologists, economists, and cultural experts.
This volume is a collection of original essays prepared by colleagues, collaborators, and former students on the occasion of Helmut K. Anheier's 65th birthday and retirement from the University of Heidelberg. An internationally recognized pioneer of nonprofit and civil society studies, Anheier focused his work on providing clarity around (1) civil society, local and global, observing its origins and trajectory and developing theories to explain it; (2) the nonprofit sector and institutions within and extending from it, including nonprofit organizations, philanthropy and social investment; and (3) culture as it relates to democracy and back to civil society. The essays in this volume refer to these concepts and position them in the context of developments over the last two to three decades. The volume is arranged in three sections. The first section comprises essays that elucidate concepts and probe theories in the field. The second section presents chapters discussing current global challenges and trends in the focal areas. The third and final section then comprises country and regional case studies illustrating important aspects of the global challenges or theoretical issues of the two preceding sections. A fascinating and up-to-date overview of key issues and trends in civil society and nonprofit research by an international collection of eminent scholars in these fields, this book will be attractive to civil society and nonprofit sector researchers as well as a broader academic community of political scientists, sociologists, economists, and cultural experts.
Recently the topic of civil society has generated a wave of interest, and a wealth of new information. Until now no publication has attempted to organize and consolidate this knowledge. The International Encyclopedia of Civil Society fills this gap, establishing a common set of understandings and terminology, and an analytical starting point for future research. Global in scope and authoritative in content, the Encyclopedia offers succinct summaries of core concepts and theories; definitions of terms; biographical entries on important figures and organizational profiles. In addition, it serves as a reliable and up-to-date guide to additional sources of information. In sum, the Encyclopedia provides an overview of the contours of civil society, social capital, philanthropy and nonprofits across cultures and historical periods. For researchers in nonprofit and civil society studies, political science, economics, management and social enterprise, this is the most systematic appraisal of a rapidly growing field.
This volume explores how the idea of civil society has been translated in different cultural contexts and examines its impact on politics worldwide. Comparing and contrasting civil society in Latin America and Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the United States, Africa and South Asia, and the Middle East, the contributors show that there are multiple interpretations of the concept that depend more on the particular political configuration in different parts of the world than on cultural predilections. They also demonstrate that the power of civil society depends less on abstract definitions, and more on the extent to which it is grounded in the context of actual experiences from around the world. This book includes some of the biggest names in the area such as Mary Kaldor, Ronnie Lipschutz and Helmut Anheier.
Set within the context of Europe, this book demonstrates the contribution that community development can make to strengthening civil society. The book interweaves case studies with discussion of community development principles and theory to provide a critical and accessible approach.
Setting out to explore critically the way civil society has entered development thinking, policy and practice as a paradigmatic concept of the 21st century, Howell (development studies, U. of Sussex) and Pearce (Latin American politics, U. of Bradford) trace the historical path leading to the encounter between the ideas of development and civil society in the late 1980s and how donors have translated these into development policy an programs. They find that there are competing normative visions, which have deep roots in Western European political thought, about the role of civil society in relation to the state and market both among donors and within the societies where donors are operating. This leads to donors playing a major role in shaping the character of service provision. They also argue that their study exposes the hitherto unexplored power of the market, as opposed to solely the state, to distort donor programs. c. Book News Inc.
Against the bleak backdrop of pressing issues in today’s world, civil societies remain vibrant, animated by people’s belief that they should and can solve such issues and build a better society. Their imagination of a good society, their understanding of their engagement, and the ways they choose to act constitute the cultural aspect of civil society. Central to this cultural aspect of civil society is the “culture of democracy,” including normative values, individual interpretations, and interaction norms pertaining to features of a democratic society, such as civility, independence, and solidarity. The culture of democracy varies in different contexts and faces challenges, but it shapes civic actions, alters political and social processes, and thus is the soul of modern civil societies. The Culture of Democracy provides the first systematic survey of the cultural sociology of civil society and offers a committed global perspective. It shows that, as everyone is eager to have their voice heard, cultural sociology can serve as an “art of listening,” a thoroughly empirical approach that takes ideas, meanings, and opinions seriously, for people to contemplate significant theoretical and public issues.
Although the concept of civil society is in wide circulation today, there is no consensus among scholars on its definition and attributes. Nevertheless, those who use it agree that it refers to an important reality: that civil society is fundamental to democratic governance. If in political science the civil society discourse was occasioned by a re-thinking on the nature of the state and the dynamics of democracy in India, in sociology the context for the discourse was provided by the plethora of social movements and the role of NGOs in socioeconomic development. In the 13 chapters in this book, well-known scholars elucidate in detail a variety of themes relating to civil society. They delineate the `cultural' and `power' perspectives on civil society, analyze the relationship between `civil society' and `good society, and examine the nature of civil society and its relation to specific institutions or processes, such as farmers' agitations; natural resource management; identity politics; fundamentalism; religion, caste and language; and civil society, the state, and democracy.
This collection explores the theoretical underpinnings of democratic planning and governance in relation to civil society formation and social learning.