Suchergebnisse

Klappentext: Now in its fourth edition, Civil Society has become a major work of reference for those who seek to understand the role of voluntary citizen action in a troubled world. Recent economic and political developments do not bode well for the theory and practice of civil society: communities are increasingly divided; inequality is on the rise; authoritarians and populists have gained a foothold even in advanced democracies; restrictions on freedom of speech and association are increasingly common and recent scandals have even reduced trust in charities. Worryingly, public spheres seem incapable of addressing these concerns. Yet, as Michael Edwards makes clear, ideas about the civil sphere can shed much light on what is happening, why, and how we might respond to polarization, privatization, and authoritarians of various stripes.

At the moment, no other European city attracts so much fascination as the city of Berlin. An unrivalled symbol of modern urban life, Berlin is a dynamic city whose inhabitants, in the course of the past two centuries, have lived through both the rapid growth and the violent destruction of the institutions of civil society, several times over. This volume situates itself within these developments by presenting, for the first time in English, a sample of the best, recently written essays on contemporary civil societies, their structural problems, and their uncertain future, written by scholars

The concept of civil society was borrowed from 18th-century Europe to provide a framework for understanding the transition to post-authoritarian regimes in Latin America and post-communist regimes elsewhere. This book asks whether this concept is useful for analyzing China

The European Union (EU) has clearly made a difference for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). EU officials and European political entrepreneurs have been crucial in the promotion of funding and access opportunities, but they have been proven to have little capacity to create CSOs from scratch or to use CSOs too bluntly for their own purposes. This book brings Europeanization studies closer to society by providing a sociologically-informed analysis, which challenges current assumptions and highlights neglected areas of study. It also addresses many of the methodological challenges in the empirical study of the Europeanization of interest groups, including a comparative analysis over a long time period. The book provides a comparison across three countries, France, UK and Spain, and two policy sectors, international solidarity and social CSOs.

The annual Global Civil Society Yearbooks provide an indispensable guide to global civil society or civic participation and action around the world. The Yearbook includes commissioned contributions from leading commentators across the social sciences on the latest issues and developments, explores and presents the latest approaches to measuring and analyzing global civil society and provides a chronology of key global civil society events in the year. The Global Civil Society Yearbook remains the standard work on all aspects of contemporary global civil society for activists, practitioners, st

The European Union (EU) has clearly made a difference for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). EU officials and European political entrepreneurs have been crucial in the promotion of funding and access opportunities, but they have been proven to have little capacity to create CSOs from scratch or to use CSOs too bluntly for their own purposes. This book brings Europeanization studies closer to society by providing a sociologically-informed analysis, which challenges current assumptions and highlights neglected areas of study. It also addresses many of the methodological challenges in the empirical study of the Europeanization of interest groups, including a comparative analysis over a long time period. The book provides a comparison across three countries, France, UK and Spain, and two policy sectors, international solidarity and social CSOs

This open access book focuses on the role of civil society in the creation, dissemination, and interpretation of knowledge in geographical contexts. It offers original, interdisciplinary and counterintuitive perspectives on civil society. The book includes reflections on civil and uncivil society, the role of civil society as a change agent, and on civil society perspectives of undone science. Conceptual approaches go beyond the tripartite division of public, private and civic sectors to propose new frameworks of civic networks and philanthropic fields, which take an inclusive view of the connectivity of civic agency across sectors. This includes relational analyses of epistemic power in civic knowledge networks as well as of regional giving and philanthropy. The original empirical case studies examine traditional forms of civic engagement, such as the German landwomen's associations, as well as novel types of organizations, such as giving circles and time banks in their geographical context. The book also offers insider reflections on doing civil society, such as the cases of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, epistemic activism in the United States, and the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa.

"From food banks to migrant welcome committees, and community organisers to internet based campaigners, civil society is central to the North Atlantic social landscape. Theology and Civil Society advances our understanding of what civil society is and offers a theologically informed re-imagining of our shared social life. Prefaced by a foreword by the Rev. Dr Rowan Williams, this book explores contemporary manifestations of the kind of collective action observed in civil society since the 1800s. It then examines civil society as the sum of modern associations which mediate our relationships to the market and the state, but which cannot be identified fully with either the market or the state. Finally, three different perspectives on civil society are presented using insights from theologians such as John Milbank and Georg Hegel. This is a pertinent topic for contemporary society, and it is explored expertly here by an international panel of contributors. As such, it is an important volume for any scholar of Theology and Religious Studies and their interactions with Sociology and Politics."--Provided by publisher.

Are young people blindly self-interested? How does university shape students' political participation? Can busy parents and grandparents find time to volunteer? Challenging conventional thinking, leading academics explore how individuals' relationships with civil society change over time as different lifecourse events and stages trigger and hinder civic engagement. Drawing on personal narratives, longitudinal cohort studies and national surveys, this unprecedented study considers rarely examined aspects of civic engagement including school students' sense of social responsibility and the charitable legacy bequests of elderly people and highlights significant implications for those promoting greater civic and political participation.

Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of tables -- Preface and acknowledgments -- Note on transliteration and terminology -- List of abbreviations -- Map -- 1 Civil society in comparative perspective -- Western civil society -- Civil society in the Arab world -- African civil society -- Activism and civil society in Yemen -- 2 Twentieth-century states and economies -- Colonialism, tradition, and revolution -- State institutions and state sectors in two Yemeni republics -- The oil industry and the fall of the iron curtain -- Unity and discord in the Republic of Yemen -- 3 Islam, tribes, and social services -- Institutions of community and tribute -- Capital, philanthropy, and endowment -- Cooperation and mutual aid -- Latter-day community betterment projects -- 4 Colonialism, activism, and resistance -- Elections and formal political participation -- Urban clubs and associations -- Unions and the Aden Trades Union Congress -- Rural activism -- Nationalist and pan-Arab parties -- The press -- Episodic meetings and appeals -- Revolution and consolidation -- 5 Self-help, social capital, and state power -- Yemeni LDAs from a comparative development perspective -- Self-help and local traditions -- Legislative basis of the LDAs -- Civic initiative and central response -- Social services and societal transformation -- The centralization of cooperation -- 6 Unity, pluralism, and political participation -- Liberalizing legislation -- Party pluralism and electoral competition -- Mass media and the press -- Quasi-governmental and private voluntary associations -- The conference mode of participation -- 7 Civic responses to political crisis -- Governmental power struggles -- The national dialogue of political forces -- The expression of public opinion -- The civil war and its aftermath -- The 1997 elections -- Contending forces

This open access book examines how civil society organizations in Poland, Russia, and Sweden (re)act to transformations of opportunities and limitations in access to various forms of resources. The volume's contributions discuss the constraints associated with different types of resources as well as organizations' capacities to generate resources—or compensate for their lack—as they negotiate and contest barriers. The resourcefulness of civil society is revealed to be rooted in a variety of capabilities: converting resources, eliciting organizational change, and metamorphosing in response to organizational and environmental development. ​

Inspired by the globality of justice concerns in the 21st century, Global Civil Society 2011 focuses on how civil society actors around the world are framing, contesting and promoting ideas about justice, as well as their strategies to tackle the myriad injustices people face. It identifies an important shift in the globalisation of concerns about justice ₆ citizens may claim benefits from the nation state, but increasingly groups interacting globally are collectivizing a sense of injustice. In this way global civil society has created and expanded new spaces to reinstall justice as inspiration and arbiter of laws. Combining activist and academic accounts of contemporary struggles, this yearbook provides critical insight into how civil society is remaking justice in a global arena, beyond the confines of the nation state.