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Call for contributions to Voluntas special issue:
Civil Society Organizations: the Site of Legitimizing the Common Good

 
Special issue Editors:
Liv Egholm (Copenhagen Business School)
Liesbet Heyse (University of Groningen)
Damien Mourey (IAE Paris, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are experiencing significant public and academic attention, especially as suppliers of social cohesion, promoters of active citizenship and safeguards of the common and greater good in society through their special characteristics and values. Following, CSOs have been championing their contribution as the rescuer/savior not just of the traditional welfare state but also of national cohesion as such.

However, CSOs do not by definition create social cohesion and contribute to the common good. Recently researchers have shown that many voluntary-based associations, cooperatives, mutual funds, philanthropic organizations, transnational advocacy groups and, more recently, social entrepreneurs, have purposes closely related to their particular interest and are not necessarily directed towards a common good (Alexander, 2006; Frantz & Fuchs, 2014). Even though their legitimizations and justifications often are articulated as a collective engagement towards the making of a “better society” and a willingness to contribute to the “Greater Good” linked to positive characteristics of Civil Society, one cannot just study these organizations and associations as good per se (Dekker, 2014).

The concept of legitimacy within CSOs has been discussed and defined as; a lawful, admissible, and justified organization (Edwards, 2000) or more recently, Alexander´s division between the civil and uncivil sphere (2006) and Lichterman & Eliasoph´s (Lichterman & Eliasoph, 2014) identifications of civic action. As such, historically the legitimization of CSOs´ actions and existence is intertwined with stakeholder accountability, contemporary “regimes” of justification (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006) and the range of available institutional and organizational forms. Accordingly, CSOs must be studied for how and which specific understandings of the common good and society they promote - and thus which consequences that entails - also in line of which groups are found worthy of being included within the “Common Good” and which are not (Chambers & Kopstein, 2001; Reuter, Wijkström, & Meyer, 2014)

In this special issue we therefore seek to shed light on
1. How do these processes of legitimation take place? What are the consequences of these changes? And what type of politics/inclusion/exclusion do they conceal?

2. How do CSOs manage and institutionalize their explicit role of doing good?

3. How do CSOs manage accountability claims to strengthen their legitimacy in Civil Society?

These questions can obviously be addressed from different angles - both empirically and theoretically - and we encourage strongly this pluralism of views for this special issue in Voluntas. First, CSOs refer to an array of different organizational forms - ranging from voluntary-based associations to cooperatives, fundations and social entrepreneurs - and the questioning of their legitimacy to act for the “common good” or to benefit from specific regulatory measures and/or specific funding possibilities take on different forms across this spectrum and across countries.

Second, CSOs have also to deal with an array of stakeholders that have expressed different and sometimes divergent claims in recent times. Donors, funders, beneficiaries, volunteers, workers, regulators have different interests in and representations of the performance and the identity of a CSO. Being accountable to all of them - which is one strategy among others to (re)legitimize a CSO’s being and doings - might just be an impossible task - but also a source of opportunities - as there is no clear-cut hierarchy among them and no obvious common ground. However, we still need to better understand how and to what extent these different accountabilities and legitimations are articulated, prioritized, put in practice as well as which consequences/effects they have.

Third, CSOs may resort to more proactive strategies to (re)-legitimize their doings and actions such as (re)framing their narrative, meeting accountability requests, abide by - either as a sham or in substance - models of governance or organizational practices perceived as legitimate by the Society at large, and/or manipulate myths, ceremonies and symbols as a way to construct a cognitive legitimacy.

In this sub-theme, we hope to publish articles that will 1) illustrate empirically how CSOs proactively and sometimes artfully attempt at managing legitimization processes, and 2) challenge existing knowledge by adding to insights about legitimacy as an on-going and precarious process by means of contributions.

Procedure
Please take note of the following guidelines:
• November 30th 2017. Deadline for submitting full manuscripts to guest editors on off.dbp@cbs.dk

• February 5th 2018. Reply and short comments on accepted articles by guest editors

• April 1st 2018 accepted articles must be revised and submitted to Voluntas
(Please make sure to follow all guidelines for authors, as outlined at: http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/journal/11266)

• Every article should have sufficient methodological and theoretical baggage. Purely descriptive texts can unfortunately not be accepted, however interesting the case.

• We appreciate showing and supporting the continuity of debates in our field. Therefore please try to relate your work to studies on similar topics/countries, such as published in Voluntas and other journals in the field. Also, you should explicit the relevance of your work beyond your specific region or particular case.

References
Alexander, J. C. (2006). The Civil Sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boltanski, L., & Thévenot, L. (2006). On justification: Economies of worth. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Chambers, S., & Kopstein, J. (2001). Bad Civil Society. Political Theory, 29(6), 837-865.
Dekker, P. (2014). Tocqueville Did Not Write About Soccer Clubs: Participation in Voluntary Associations and Political Involvement. In M. Freise & T. Hallmann (Eds.), Modernizing Democracy: Associations and Associating in the 21st Century (pp. 45-58). Heidelberg: Springer.
Edwards, M. (2000). NGO Rights and Responsibilities: A New Deal for Global Governance. London: The Foreign Policy Center.
Frantz, C., & Fuchs, D. (2014). The Impact of Civil Society on Sustainable Development. In M. Freise & T. Hallmann (Eds.), Modernizing Democracy. Associations and Associating in the 21st Century (pp. 83-96). Heidelberg: Springer.
Lichterman, P., & Eliasoph, N. (2014). Civic Action. American Journal of Sociology, 120(3), 798-863.
Reuter, M., Wijkström, F., & Meyer, M. (2014). Who Calls the Shots? The Real Normative Power of Civil Society. In M. Freise & T. Hallmann (Eds.), Modernizing Democracy: Associations

 

 

 

 

 

 

VOLUNTAS Call for Papers: Food Banks and Related Food Insecurity Provision

CALL FOR PAPERS (deadline July 30, 2017 for abstract – 250 words; full paper due November 30, 2017)

Advancing theory and knowledge around food banks and related food insecurity provision 

Guest Editors: Alex Murdock email: alex.murdock@lsbu.ac.uk 

Laurie Mook email: laurie.mook@asu.edu 

Craig Gundersen email: cggunder@illinois.edu 

This issue focuses on exploring both the theoretical and empirically researched spaces associated with food banks and their efforts to reduce food insecurity. The area is contested in theoretical and discourse terms with food banks and related provision seen differently depending on perspective and assumptions. This discussion is often quite distinct in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Hong Kong and Europe. We welcome work that connect the realities of food banks and related food insecurity provision with the larger context using explanatory frameworks. There are several theoretical lenses to approaching research in this area using economic, political and social theories such as state and market failure and voluntary sector failure. Of particular importance is how food banks bridge and bond in terms of social capital. We are seeking empirical research, case studies, comparative studies and theoretical work.

Please indicate your intent to submit by sending an abstract of no more than 250 words to the guest editors by July 30, 2017, including the research question to be addressed and a general overview of the proposed manuscript.

Abstracts will be reviewed and selected by August 30, 2017. Full papers (maximum 10,000 words) will be submitted by November 30, 2017. 

We aim for submission to Voluntas for peer review in February 2018.

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VOLUNTAS: Editor's Choice

Nonprofits are collective endeavors that supply a bewildering range of products and services, including some of value to their immediate members only. Many also advocate policy positions on issues of direct interest to themselves, their clients and beneficiaries, and/or the broader community. There is substantial variation in their advocacy strategies, the scope of policy goals they embrace, and the types of individuals they engage in such activities. Consequently, there are also differences in whether and how nonprofit advocacy activities reduce inequalities, enhance civic participation, and promote deliberative democracy. This symposium interprets and theorizes about emerging nonprofit challenges by showcasing research of nonprofit advocacy and civic engagement scholars. Collectively, the papers demonstrate the vibrancy of the field of nonprofit civic engagement and advocacy and identify important areas for future research to capture the complexity of nonprofits as actors guided by both instrumental and normative goals, serving organizational and social missions, and reducing some types of inequalities but creating new ones.

To learn more, please visit https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11266-016-9

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VOLUNTAS: Open Access Articles

VOLUNTAS: Be sure to read open access articles, which can be found at 
https://link.springer.com/search…

The current issue of VOLUNTAS offers open access for:

'Grassroots Environmental Activism in an Authoritarian Context: The Trees Movement in Vietnam' 

'Social Marketisation and Policy Influence of Third Sector Organisations: Evidence from the UK'

'Peruvian Grassroots Organizations in Times of Violence and Peace. Between Economic Solidarity, Participatory Democracy, and Feminism'

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Call for contributions to Voluntas Special Issue: The Organizations of Civil Society

Special Issue Editors: Michael Meyer (WU Vienna), Ruth Simsa (WU Vienna),
Sarah Soule (Stanford University), Filip Wijkström (Stockholm School of Economics)

Organizations are central actors in civil society, yet the popular view of civil society often focuses on individual behavior (e.g., civic or political engagement, volunteering, giving) or on macro-sociological phenomena (e.g., different nonprofit regimes, cross-sectoral cooperation). Nevertheless, organizations play a crucial role as actors in civil society. Organizations also serve as platforms and "transmission units" between individual actors and society. Thus civil society organizations (CSOs) are critically important to safe-guard, shape and develop an active and healthy civil society – but also to understand civil society's role in society.

With this special issue of Voluntas, we wish to encourage further theoretical and empirical research on CSOs and their many roles or functions in society. Further, although management questions are addressed quite regularly, there is still little research analyzing structural and cultural characteristics of CSOs, and this research is weakly linked to organizational theory. Compared to the business and public sector, the variety of organizational forms and goals seems to be much broader in civil society, and we hope to be able to publish a diverse set of papers that adequately reflects this empirical reality.

We invite contributions primarily from two major perspectives. (1) From Organizational Theory / Organization Studies, we welcome contributions focused on the particularities of CSOs compared to other types of organizations. (2) From the perspective of civil society scholarship, we welcome contributions focused on the specific strengths / weaknesses of organizations as collective actors, compared to individuals, groups and movements, and / or how CSOs influence the wider civil society and its position in society.

We aim to publish empirical (qualitative and/or quantitative) papers from a broad variety of theoretical perspectives. Thus, submissions to this special issue should relate to distinct theoretical approaches and specific phenomena in civil society. The submitted research may be inspired by social movement theory, new institutionalism, resource dependence theory, organizational field theory, systems theory, complexity theory, convention theory, or various symbolic, cultural, and strategic approaches to organizations.

We hope to publish articles which when read will challenge existing knowledge so as to generate a  new set of research questions with the aim to push contemporary theoretical borders in civil society research.

Submissions should further concentrate upon specific phenomena of organizing – e.g., the interplay between CSOs and their specific environments, the particularities of governance and management in these organizations, the borderland between CSOs and social movements, support groups, public administrations,  or for-profit corporations, or the contributions of CSOs to individual civic engagement and political decision making. In any case, we hope that the particularities of CSOs should be focused and theoretically reflected in the contributions. Each submission should be explicit about its theoretical basis and its explanatory power for specific organizational phenomena in civil society.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 700 words (excluding references) providing the editors with a clear indication of the research question(s) to be addressed, the theoretical basis, the methods used and the contribution to the literature by November 30, 2016. Abstracts should be sent to npo@wu.ac.at and will be reviewed and selected until January 31, 2017. Full papers will be expected until end of May 2017.

Call for Paper Proposals for a Special Issue of Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations

The role of the voluntary and non-profit sector in migration

Migration dominates current political debates. Coping with the massive refugee influx on a global scale represents one of the central challenges for societies, their stability and welfare. In many countries, civil society has made important contributions to coping with the refugee crisis, not only in terms of the provision of initial care for incoming refugees, but also in the organization and coordination of further help concerning accommodation, legal aid, health care and language courses. Civil society also played an important role in the provision of continuing and complementary measures of integration.

We propose a theme issue for Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, in which we will examine the role of the voluntary and non-profit sector in relation to migration. When we speak of migrants, we are referring specifically to first-generation migrants arriving in a new country, permanently or in transit. 

We welcome articles on the following topics: 

- The role of non-profit and voluntary organizations in supporting migrants during their journey and during the intake process; 

- The role of non-profit and voluntary organizations in contributing to the integration of migrants;

- The relationship and the distribution of tasks between the state and civil society in different welfare regimes;

- The role of cross-national ethnic communities with respect to migration;

- Advocacy by non-profit and voluntary organizations with respect to the migrant issue (both pro- and anti-immigrant); their role in influencing the public debate.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words (excluding references) that gives a clear indication of the research question(s) to be addressed, the methods used and the contribution to the academic literature by May 1, 2016.

Abstracts should be sent to voluntaseditor@gmx.at. A first decision will be made by May 25. 

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Call for Paper Proposals for a Special Issue of Voluntas: Chinese Citizens’ Activities Past and Present: Continuity and Change in Civic Engagement

 

Since the caesura in 1989, a sharp increase in civic activities all over the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has taken place. Civic engagement draws on historical experiences and predecessors while at the same time developing fresh modes of mobilization and engagement and employing innovative strategies to further its causes. The increased formation of citizens and the emergence of a flourishing civil society indicate a new level of civic engagement in China.

 

This issue takes a critical look at Chinese citizens’ activities and their engagement past and present, to analyze the changes in citizenship that has taken place in the last quarter century. Therefore we will look back to the caesura of 1989 and depict it as one key backdrop against which the developments relevant for current civic engagement are delineated. Furthermore, we will scrutinize the conditions which have changed since then and how these changes have affected civic engagement, as for instance through the Document no. 9, issued in 2013. From a historical comparative perspective we will explore how current citizens' activities are different now and then. Contributions incorporating the changing contexts in which civic engagements take place are encouraged. While highlighting the impact of new factors like the emergence of social media, an emphasis is also set on identifying stable patterns, values and strategies for civic engagement.  Additionally, the analysis of innovative strategies for civic engagement in its current state which show possible developments and directions for Chinese citizenship are also encouraged.

 

By setting current civic activities in the context of its historic precedent, we hope to capture the dynamic phenomenon of Chinese citizenship and its huge diversity. Thereby we will contribute to a comprehensive understanding of civic engagement, Chinese citizens, citizenship as well as to a greater awareness for the path dependency of civic development in the PRC.  

 

We invite papers from all disciplines of no more than 10,000 words. The deadline for completed papers is October 31^st 2014. The papers should clearly state their relevance to this special issue. Empirically rooted contributions are welcomed as well as theory-based articles. We encourage scholars from all disciplines, as well as practitioners from the field of civic engagement, to contribute to this issue. Papers are to be submitted online to the Voluntas Editorial Manager: https://www.editorialmanager.com/volu/, with reference to: Special Issue Citizens in China. Authors of selected papers will be notified by the end of November 2014.  

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Special Issue Call for Papers: Civil Society and Third Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean

 

Contents

Civil society and Third sector organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean have demonstrated to have a strong presence in their societies in a great variety of areas.  The history of these organizations in this region show us that in the 18th century,  mostly  religious and religious affiliated organizations distinguished themselves for their help and participation  in  areas of education and health in taking care of the sick and vulnerable portions of the population. In the 19th century more lay organizations were added to these thus steering their interests to these areas of service to others. There was also an important development of cooperatives for the wellbeing of their members.  Furthermore, in the  second half of the 20th century, in the seventies decade, many new organizations attended themes as poverty alleviation and many of them incursioned into human rights issues even where there was authoritarian rule in several parts of the region. 

These organizations, as well as universities and researchers, have played an important role in international comparative efforts such as the Johns Hopkins Comparative project and the Civicus effort in more than fifty counties  both created to understand how different societies function around the globe. These organizations have also grown in size and influence; they are now a source of employment and are also open to those individuals interested in service and volunteer participation. 

ISTR has held 9 Regional Conferences in Latin America and the Caribbean.  Every two years committed civil society organizations and academic institutions have hosted a growing community of researchers from the area as well as international colleagues interested in studying the region.  Themes featured include: diverse ways of administration and governance within organizations, human resources, fundraising, training and capacity building, several aspects of citizen participation including volunteer efforts, human rights efforts, impact studies, communication, etc. 

This edition of Voluntas in its Latin American focuses on these themes as well as others such as poverty alleviation in its many manifestations,  inequality, violence, corruption, human rights social movements and the creation of  public policies,  among others.

Guest editors to this special issue of Voluntas : Jacqueline Butcher (CIESC, Center for Research and Civil Society Studies at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico City Campus) and Beatriz Balian, Vice Rector for  Research at UCA (Argentine Catholic University, Buenos Aires city),  will gladly receive  articles in English and Spanish  on a theoretical background as well as empirical research of an interdisciplinary nature. 

Themes suggested for this volume are:

·     Social problems, defense of human rights within civil society and Third sector organizations

·      Planning, governance, administration and sustainability of civil society organizations.

·        Volunteering: Motivation and Personal commitments.

·      Donations:  Philanthropy and Social Investment

·        Legitimacy, transparency and accountability

·        Participative processes, representation and citizenship

·        Relationships of social organizations with Government and Business

·        Social economy and solidarity

·        Social movements, democracy building and MDG.

·        Civil society organization representatively and forms of communication

·   Social impact of civil society  and Third Sector organizations  on vulnerable populations: children, women , indigenous populations and  the elderly

·      Impact of social organizations on illegal behavior such as human trafficking, delinquents and drug dealing.  

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