{"title":"Youth worldlessness and civic participation online and at school: Exploring Arendt’s philosophy","authors":"Jessie Angeline Bustillos Morales","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2293693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2293693","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"16 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138966253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lau Schulpen, Luuk van Kempen, Willem Elbers, Daniëlla van Uden
{"title":"Beyond the Immediate Effects of COVID-19: Exploring the Consequences of the Pandemic on the Southern NGO Partners of Dutch INGOs","authors":"Lau Schulpen, Luuk van Kempen, Willem Elbers, Daniëlla van Uden","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2268755","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2268755","url":null,"abstract":"Covid-19 has a significant impact on societies and individuals but also on organizations. Using a survey and focus group discussions, this article examines (perceptions of) Covid-19’s impact on the Southern NGO partners of Dutch INGOs in the context of international development. The analysis explores how Covid-19 has affected Southern NGOs’ (SNGOs) organizational capacity and relations with donors. This article finds that Covid-19 has had substantial and largely negative consequences on SNGOs’ financial situation, staffing, and activities. Furthermore, the findings suggest that Covid-19 contributed (at least temporarily) to more equal relations between Southern NGOs and donors. The results emphasize the need for donors, including INGOs, to offer financial safety nets to ensure that SNGOs remain operational when crises hit and the need for both sides to keep up the momentum to shift the power relation.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"148 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135412304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Renegotiating state-third sector relations through collaborative partnerships: The case of reception services for asylum-seeking children in Gothenburg, Sweden","authors":"Inga Narbutaite Aflaki","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2255699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2255699","url":null,"abstract":"Unprecedented numbers of unaccompanied minors entering Sweden in 2015, alongside other challenging social issues, have contributed to renegotiating collaborative forms of local governance in the country. This has resulted in an emergence of collaborative partnerships between civil society and public actors (Idéburna offentliga partnerskap or IOP), as real alternative to the market-based contracts and traditional state grants. This article addresses IOP from a collaborative governance perspective and questions if and how it may cope with a major and well known governance challenge, that of balancing the different roles and principles of public and civil society realms, so as to sustain an effective and legitimate cross-sectorial partnership. It asks, may and how an IOP enable civil society organisations a more active role in co-designing and co-implementing local welfare services with public sector actors without undermining their distinctiveness? The arguments are based on a case study of, at the time, the largest IOP in Sweden initiated for early reception of unaccompanied minors in Gothenburg city. The partnership is assessed against a normative theoretical framework of balanced state-third sector relations. The results suggest that IOPs, under certain conditions, may serve as ‘spaces of hope’ for more balanced power relations in local governance models.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135483413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"<i>Consultation</i> not <i>Contestation</i> : Brazilian civil society in EU-Mercosur Association Agreement negotiations","authors":"Emilio Del Pupo","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2264404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2264404","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this article is to explore the role of Brazilian civil society in interregional trade between 2003 and 2020, with a focus on negotiations between the European Union and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). I draw on document analysis from Mercosur’s online archives and from interviews with actors engaged in trade at the time analyzed, supported by the Modes of Participation framework. This approach allowed for a uniquely critical perspective on Mercosur’s participatory structure. I aim to find out: who was represented in negotiations; what forms of participation were permitted; and who were the actors who pushed for the creation of participatory channels. My hypothesis is that, by establishing modes of participation, government elites have filtered out dissenting voices from channels which could potentially influence negotiations, while civil society representatives created participatory spaces in response to perceived limitations. Results show that societal dissent was contained first by a proliferation of channels and mechanisms for limited participation from 2003, and from 2016 onwards by limiting access to government officials and reports on negotiating rounds. Furthermore, it was found that contentious actors, excluded from negotiations, created their own spaces for participation, such as drafting collective statements and lobbying Brazilian congresspeople.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135246192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Campaigns without civil society? The involvement of organized interests in electoral politics","authors":"Marco Lisi, João Gaio e Silva","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2255690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2255690","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTElections are key moments for interactions between civil society and representatives. While bottom-up mobilization tries to influence the composition of parliament and policy outputs, political parties and politicians engage with broader civil society to strengthen their legitimacy and to obtain strategic benefits in terms of electoral results. This study focuses on the role organized interests play in election campaigns and explains why collective societal actors do not engage in a significant way in the electoral process. By examining the Portuguese case during the 2019 elections, this study relies on data triangulation to map the involvement of organized interests in the electoral process. We argue that political parties have no incentives to foster linkages with interest groups, while civil society organizations prefer to stay in the shade or do not have opportunities to engage in electoral politics. The findings have implications not only in terms of low levels of political mobilization, but also with regard to policy innovation (and lack thereof).KEYWORDS: Organized interestspolitical partieselectionspolitical representationPortugal Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The terms ‘interest groups', ‘organized interests', ‘organized groups' or ‘organized civil society’ are used interchangeably in this text.2 Given that our primary focus is on the associational component of organized civil society, we exclude from this study individual companies, think tanks or law firms.3 The distinction between insider and outsider groups aims to distinguish between those organizations with direct contacts to decision-makers and those groups that have no access to public officials.4 See Table A1 in the online appendix for the list of abbreviations.5 The new regulations did not avoid some cases of illegal funding from private donors, mostly related to individuals or companies (see Sousa, Citation2014).6 There are some works dealing with the broader concept of civil society, but the universe of organization is wider than the types of actors surveyed in this study, as they include many civic associations that do not have any relevant activity or role in the policy-making process.7 The survey was active from January to August 2019 and was administered through Internet via one-click survey (https://www.1ka.si/d/en). Dataset and additional information are available upon request from the corresponding author.8 The interviews took place between September 2018 and June 2019, the period just before the beginning of the 2019 election campaign.9 See the online appendix (Table A3) for question wording.10 For example, in the 2019 elections nursing trade unions and several associations linked to urban mobility sent their proposals by email to all parties. These efforts usually have no direct impact on policy positions, but they can gain media visibility.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by Fun","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135437527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Faith standing out? Discovering the particularities of faith-based antitrafficking organizations in Thailand and Cambodia","authors":"Andreas Henriksson","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2255701","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2255701","url":null,"abstract":"While there are some studies mapping non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) responses to human trafficking, insufficient attention has been devoted to antitrafficking responses of Faith-Based Organizations (FBO). To remedy this gap, this article surveys 59 antitrafficking organizations through the analysis of their websites, assessing their level of faith-infusion and mapping their antitrafficking strategies. To identify the distinctiveness of FBOs, these are compared to their secular NGO counterparts. The survey shows that compared to their secular NGO counterparts, FBOs tend to focus more on the post-trauma stages of interventions and that FBOs tend to have individual and church-based donor networks. To further explore these patterns, I draw on qualitative case studies of three Christian FBOs in Thailand and Cambodia. Together, the survey and the case studies suggest that FBOs approach antitrafficking in a distinct spiritualized way, in particular for FBOs with higher degrees of faith-infusion. Faith is seen as an added value but employed in varied ways in antitrafficking; from integrating spirituality in programmes to de-emphasizing religious identity in favour of the theory of change emphasizing collaboration. The former illustrates the resistance to the secular paradigm while the latter illustrates adaptations to the same.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135437035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trends in forms of civic involvement in the Netherlands between 2008 and 2020","authors":"Maikel Meijeren, Marcel Lubbers, Peer Scheepers","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2255695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2255695","url":null,"abstract":"Dutch civil society is seen as well-equipped and known for its high level of civic involvement in various fields. For sustainability of civil society, however, it is crucial to understand to what extent civic involvement changes over time. Therefore, this article describes how civic involvement in the Netherlands has developed in the period 2008–2020. Using longitudinal high-quality survey data, we consider (contradictory or complementary) causes for trends on civic involvement during the period of investigation: (1) ongoing individualization; (2) traditionalization; (3) the role of major societal events that may periodically undermine or boost civil society. We find an overall trend of predominantly stable, yet slowly and statistically significant declining engagement levels that seem robust and relatively unaffected by societal events. Our results also reveal clearly fixed sequences of forms of civic involvement between distinguished (clusters of) organizations. The results in this article are most in line with individualization processes. However, given that the declines are slow and relatively unaffected by societal events, the findings could also be due to the slow process of cohort replacement.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135784700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shrinking or expanding access to civic space? The consequences of hate speech, threats and harassment within Swedish civil society","authors":"Gabriella Scaramuzzino","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2255693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2255693","url":null,"abstract":"Previous research has focused on how governments and public authorities can limit civil society organisations’ (CSOs) autonomy by shrinking their operational civic space and their democratic functions. There has been less attention paid to how other external actors and types of pressure might restrict access to civic space and how it can induce coping responses on both an individual and organizational level. This article draws on an interview study with representatives, employees and volunteers in Swedish CSOs and focuses on their strategies on coping with hate speech, threats and harassment or the perceived risk thereof and explores if and how the fear of being subjected to hate speech, threats and harassment restricts civil society actors in their autonomy and affects their democratic functions. Results show that there is a tendency towards withdrawal from public debates by making themselves more anonymous and less accessible, by depoliticizing contentious issues and by disrupting the chain of representation. These coping responses are problematic, as they limit civil society’s ability to act as an independent and critical voice, but the personal costs for being visible in the public sphere are often considered too high.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135784910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A bird's eye view of civic engagement and its facets: Canonical correlation analysis across 34 countries","authors":"Kaitlyn Battershill, Victor Kuperman","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2255694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2255694","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTCivic engagement is a multi-faceted concept that is integral to the proper functioning of a democratic society. The present study investigates the effect that a wide range of individual-level demographic, educational, cognitive, and health-related predictors have on civic engagement and its facets, providing an overview of 34 countries around the world. The use of canonical correlation analysis allows us to quantify both the shared and unique contribution of the predictors to two facets of civic engagement, voluntary work and political efficacy. The common scale of the analysis provides an intuitive visualization of barriers and pathways to one's engagement in the community and society at large. We further ground our findings in country-level socio-demographic data, providing external validation to our method.KEYWORDS: Civic engagementvolunteeringpolitical efficacycross-nationalparticipation AcknowledgmentsThe authors wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships-Master's award (Battershill), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Training Grant 895-2016-1008 (Libben, PI), the Canada Research Chair (Tier 2; Kuperman, PI), and the Canada Foundation for Innovation Leaders Opportunity Fund (Kuperman, PI).","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135784699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Community co-production engaging youth with mental health problems. Is equal participation possible?","authors":"Helle Hygum Espersen","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2256426","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2256426","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTCommunity co-production is intended to improve public democracy as well as welfare economy. This single case study is a ‘most likely’ case for success and explores how experiences of equal participation among youth with mental health problems take place in a partnership between a social enterprise and a Danish municipality. I explore how the democratic dimension is configured in relation to a focus on service production and efficiency. Applying the multidimensional model of ‘the collaborative turn’ I find that equal participation of vulnerable citizens can be enhanced through co-production when youth with mental health problems equally partake in activities including supervisors from the municipality and a blended group of local participants. This, however, provide a dilemma. As part of their thriving, young people need to take an independent stand on things and interact in different transforming roles. But for the municipality, participation is a means to achieve municipal goals and supervisors can set standards for the participation of young people that contribute to stigma and inhibits the equal participation.KEYWORDS: Community co-productionyouth with mental health problemscritical single case studyequal participation AcknowledgementsThe author expresses her appreciation to Professor Linda Lundgaard Andersen Roskilde University Denmark for her valuable comments and the evaluation partnership for contribution to the data-collection.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis data collection was funded by the Danish National Board of Social Services.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135784904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}