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Communist regimes are defined by dictatorial power, state planning, and active propaganda machines. In The Campaign State, Gregory Witkowski explores the intersection of these three elements in East Germany by focusing on mass mobilizations. He dissects the anatomy of campaigns and argues that while mass mobilizations are often perceived as symbols of strength, they also indicate underlying systemic weaknesses. By focusing on the ability of regimes to mobilize individuals to transform society, he explains both the durability and the ultimate demise of the German Democratic Republic. This study seamlessly blends an analysis of top-down campaign initiatives with the influence of such mobilizations on the grassroots level. For more than thirty years, East German leaders doggedly extended such mobilization efforts, yet complete success remained elusive. Witkowski reveals how local leaders, campaign participants, and peasants acted in ways both compliant and noncompliant with party goals to create societal change. Campaigns became a ubiquitous part of life under communist rule. Witkowski shows that such mobilizations were initially an integral part of state-planning efforts and only later became ritualized, as party portrayals of goals and accomplishments diverged from East Germans' lived experience. He argues that incessant campaigns exposed a substantial gap between rhetoric and reality in the German Democratic Republic that undermined the regime's legitimacy. This valuable and original study will appeal to scholars and students of German history, Communism, and state planning

This study argues that the size of philanthropic gifts is affected by donors' perception of the value of their money. The essay examines aggregate giving to Bread for the World in former East Germany before and after two currency reforms and shows that decades of overvaluing the West German Deutschmark led East Germans to give less after the first currency reform while the second currency reform did not lead to such a drop off. The essay employs East German jokes to illustrate popular views of both East and West German currency that developed over time. It indicates that East Germans developed a perceived value of money separate from its real purchasing power, which affected their philanthropic donations. These findings are applicable to small and large philanthropic gifts, especially across currencies, as in international giving.

Die Realisierung neuer Programme der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) sowie deren Maßnahmen, politisch-ökonomische Probleme zu lösen, wurden oft von der Implementierung neuer Kampagnen oder Aktionen begleitet. Der Einsatz dieser Kampagnen war Kernelement sowohl der langfristigen Strategie im Rahmen der Fünf- und Sieben-Jahrespläne als auch kurzfristiger Maßnahmen zum temporären Ausgleich wirtschaftlicher Defizite in der DDR. Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist es, die Kampagne "Industriearbeiter aufs Land" von zwei verschiedenen Standpunkten aus zu beleuchten. Zunächst wird der Zweck der Aktion aus Sicht der SED und der Regierung analysiert, um anschließend auf die theoretischen und realpolitischen Hintergründe der Kampagne einzugehen. In einem weiteren Abschnitt werden die Zielsetzungen mit den Ergebnissen der Kampagne verglichen. Dabei wird die Umsetzung der Kampagne auf Seiten der Bezirks-, Kreis- und Gemeindepolitiker untersucht, und es werden die Unterschiede zwischen dem zentralen Staatsapparat in Berlin und seinen Vertretern auf dem Land herausgearbeitet. (ICI2)

Throughout its history, the East German Communist Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, hereafter SED) organized campaigns to overcome the economic and political challenges facing it and to launch new program initiatives. Whether the aim was to increase factory safety, beautify a village, or raise standards of living, the party and the East German government used mass mobilizations to shape society, or at least certain social groups. Communist campaigns were directed attempts to improve diverse sectors of society by concentrating resources on arenas marked as economically deficient and socially resistant. By directing their efforts at revolutionizing narrowly defined critical areas, Communist leaders felt that they could enact overarching societal changes. Campaigns thus served as a means to initiate new policies and to correct problems that developed later. They were an essential part both of the state planning so prevalent in Communist systems, and of the often hectic short-term initiatives endemic in such economies. These mobilization efforts were so critical to the regime that one scholar has declared that the German Democratic Republic (GDR) possessed a campaign, rather than a command economy.

This volume examines philanthropic practices against the backdrop of the continuities, disruptions and changes in twentieth century German socio-political relations. It presents a differentiated understanding of the relationship between philanthropy and civil society that traces this connection from Germany's first democracy, the Weimar Republic, through the Nazi dictatorship and Soviet-style rule in Communist East Germany to the stable democracy of the Federal Republic of Germany. While concentrating on Germany, this volume places German philanthropy in a triangular relationship with the United States and the developing world, primarily through Africa. In particular, the contributions to the book demonstrate that despite many transatlantic exchanges between German and American philanthropic organizations, these relationships should not be reduced to bilateral exchanges but rather seen in the context of a globalizing world. More generally, this transnational study is a reminder that philanthropic activities need to be placed into their specific historical contexts. Such an analytical framework allows for more dynamic understanding of the meaning of philanthropy in society, illustrating both enduring and changing practices.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), this article reviews the association's history, from its 1971 founding by a small group of scholars interested in voluntary action to the current association of more than 1,000 members who study a broad range of nonprofit, civil society, voluntary action, and philanthropic topics. To inform the history, we recorded oral histories and reviewed the ARNOVA collection of historical records at the Ruth Lilly Archives and internal files provided by ARNOVA. Our article is divided into three important junctures of change: 1971–1989, the founding period; 1990–2006, the golden era of philanthropic support; and 2007–2020, a maturing field and strategic directions. Through our analysis, we identify recurring themes and tensions and how ARNOVA navigated through a changing environment and growing field. We conclude the article with forward-looking questions.

This volume examines philanthropic practices against the backdrop of the continuities, disruptions and changes in twentieth century German socio-political relations. It presents a differentiated understanding of the relationship between philanthropy and civil society that traces this connection from Germany's first democracy, the Weimar Republic, through the Nazi dictatorship and Soviet-style rule in Communist East Germany to the stable democracy of the Federal Republic of Germany. While concentrating on Germany, this volume places German philanthropy in a triangular relationship with the United States and the developing world, primarily through Africa. In particular, the contributions to the book demonstrate that despite many transatlantic exchanges between German and American philanthropic organizations, these relationships should not be reduced to bilateral exchanges but rather seen in the context of a globalizing world. More generally, this transnational study is a reminder that philanthropic activities need to be placed into their specific historical contexts. Such an analytical framework allows for more dynamic understanding of the meaning of philanthropy in society, illustrating both enduring and changing practices

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Part I. Overviews of Philanthropic Areas of Engagement -- 1. Indiana's Philanthropic History: A Continuing Legacy -- 2. Religion and Philanthropy: Indiana's Traditions -- 3. Social Services in Indiana -- 4. In Search of the Ethical Society: A History of Voluntary Associations in Indiana -- 5. Independent Together: Historical Highlights of the Links between Philanthropy and Higher Education -- 6. Hoosier Health Philanthropy: Understanding the Past -- Part II. Trends and Innovations -- Section One: Motivations to Give -- 7. The Cause of Benevolence: Calvin Fletcher as Philanthropist -- 8. The Big-Hearted, Race Loving Woman -- 9. Take what you find here and make it better and better -- Section Two: Experiments in Social Change -- 10. The Emergence of Charity Evaluation -- 11. Social Innovation in the Heartland -- Section Three: Adjusting to Change and Maintaining Mission -- 12. Same Goals, Different Paths: The Wheeler City Rescue Mission and the Indianapolis Community Fund in the Mid-Twentieth Century -- 13. Gary Neighborhood House: Managing Mission and Uncertainty in the Civil Rights Era -- Section Four: Networks and Collaborations -- 14. The Problem of Expense": Lay Religion, Hoosier Patrons, and Philanthropic Logics in Midcentury America -- 15. Seeding Community Foundations in Indiana: A History of the GIFT Initiative -- Contributors -- Index.

When disaster strikes, our instinctive response is to make things better, not only as individuals but also as groups, organisations, communities and major institutions within society. With increasing climate-related disasters and the potential for future global pandemics, philanthropy will continue to play an essential role. Yet our knowledge of how philanthropic responses to disasters are motivated, organised and received is fragmented. This book is a step toward curating our existing knowledge in the emerging field of 'disaster philanthropy' and to building a robust base for future research, practice and public policy. The authors highlight unknowns and ambiguities, extensions and unexplored spaces, and challenges and paradoxes. Above all, they recognise that philanthropic responses to disasters are complex, conditional and subject to change

This book explores the interrelated campaigns of agricultural collectivization in the USSR and in the communist dictatorships established in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. Despite the profound, long-term societal impact of collectivization, the subject has remained relatively underresearched. The volume combines detailed studies of collectivization in individual Eastern European states with issueoriented comparative perspectives at regional level. Based on novel primarysources, it proposes a reappraisal of the theoretical underpinnings and research agenda of studies on collectivization in Eastern Europe.The contributions provide up-to-date overviews of recent research in the field and promote new approaches to the topic, combining historical comparisons with studies of transnational transfers and entanglements