Pub Date : 2023-09-12DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2023.2255692
Marie Nordfeldt, Margareta Dahlström
The aim of the article is to explore whether and how local civil society – grounded in bottom-up activities – responds to a top-down initiative with expectations of sustainable transformation. The focus of our research is the possible role of civil society organizations as agents in collaborations aiming for a forest-based bioeconomy. The research was conducted in a local area within the sparsely populated Swedish region of Värmland, characterized by a strong tradition of forestry. The study is explorative and uses qualitative methods: interviews with representatives of local civil society actors, participant observations of local meetings and workshops, and document analyses. Our results suggest that general policy expectations concerning the inclusion of civil society become vague when operationalized in documents at the regional level, and lack clarity concerning the roles expected from civil society. Civil society organizations (CSOs) contribute in a multitude of ways to local social, economic, and environmental sustainability. However, the inclusion of CSOs as full actors in collaborations requires a greater knowledge of the traditions and structure of Swedish civil society, as well as its conditions and challenges in different local contexts.
{"title":"Civil society in local sustainable transformation – can bottom-up activities meet top-down expectations?","authors":"Marie Nordfeldt, Margareta Dahlström","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2255692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2255692","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of the article is to explore whether and how local civil society – grounded in bottom-up activities – responds to a top-down initiative with expectations of sustainable transformation. The focus of our research is the possible role of civil society organizations as agents in collaborations aiming for a forest-based bioeconomy. The research was conducted in a local area within the sparsely populated Swedish region of Värmland, characterized by a strong tradition of forestry. The study is explorative and uses qualitative methods: interviews with representatives of local civil society actors, participant observations of local meetings and workshops, and document analyses. Our results suggest that general policy expectations concerning the inclusion of civil society become vague when operationalized in documents at the regional level, and lack clarity concerning the roles expected from civil society. Civil society organizations (CSOs) contribute in a multitude of ways to local social, economic, and environmental sustainability. However, the inclusion of CSOs as full actors in collaborations requires a greater knowledge of the traditions and structure of Swedish civil society, as well as its conditions and challenges in different local contexts.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135884199","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-18DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2023.2242517
Adrienne Sörbom, K. Jezierska
ABSTRACT In this article, we study polarization within civil society. While earlier research on civil society has shown that civil society organizations can be divisive, research on polarization has only paid scant attention to the role of civil society. We bring these two aspects of the literature together to develop a framework for analyzing social capital in a polarized context. The framework helps identify practices that organizations may engage in when shaping social capital and working with others: facilitating the flow of information; providing credentials for actors; influencing agents; and reinforcing identity and recognition. Importantly, while originally developed for a fundamentally positive analysis of the mechanics of social capital, this framework includes inverted practices. In our analysis, we observe a bifurcation of actions depending on what role they play in the polarization dynamic – integrating relations within the poles or separating relations between the poles. In this sense, social capital contributes to intensified polarization. Empirically, the article is based on a dataset of 30 interviews with 24 policy-oriented civil society organizations (CSOs), here termed think tanks, in Poland.
{"title":"Social capital and polarization: The case of Polish think tanks","authors":"Adrienne Sörbom, K. Jezierska","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2242517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2242517","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this article, we study polarization within civil society. While earlier research on civil society has shown that civil society organizations can be divisive, research on polarization has only paid scant attention to the role of civil society. We bring these two aspects of the literature together to develop a framework for analyzing social capital in a polarized context. The framework helps identify practices that organizations may engage in when shaping social capital and working with others: facilitating the flow of information; providing credentials for actors; influencing agents; and reinforcing identity and recognition. Importantly, while originally developed for a fundamentally positive analysis of the mechanics of social capital, this framework includes inverted practices. In our analysis, we observe a bifurcation of actions depending on what role they play in the polarization dynamic – integrating relations within the poles or separating relations between the poles. In this sense, social capital contributes to intensified polarization. Empirically, the article is based on a dataset of 30 interviews with 24 policy-oriented civil society organizations (CSOs), here termed think tanks, in Poland.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48115419","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2023.2242526
Jacob Smith
ABSTRACT Civil society organizations are adept and reactive advocates, using a range of strategies to promote their messages and respond to negative outcomes. For instance, even when unsuccessful in bringing legal arguments before the courts, such organizations can still use litigation as a platform for positive legal outcomes. In the national security context, however, things are not as straightforward. This piece analyses three unique ‘hurdles’ civil society organizations face in this context – judicial deference, lack of access to information, and secrecy – meaning their response to unsuccessful litigation becomes even harder. This piece provides an overview of current practice, while remaining optimistic for civil society’s response to the ‘hurdles’; concluding that, while a hard race to win, civil society can still prevail.
{"title":"Hurdles, Hurdles, and More Hurdles: Strategic Litigation in National Security Cases","authors":"Jacob Smith","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2242526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2242526","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 Civil society organizations are adept and reactive advocates, using a range of strategies to promote their messages and respond to negative outcomes. For instance, even when unsuccessful in bringing legal arguments before the courts, such organizations can still use litigation as a platform for positive legal outcomes. In the national security context, however, things are not as straightforward. This piece analyses three unique ‘hurdles’ civil society organizations face in this context – judicial deference, lack of access to information, and secrecy – meaning their response to unsuccessful litigation becomes even harder. This piece provides an overview of current practice, while remaining optimistic for civil society’s response to the ‘hurdles’; concluding that, while a hard race to win, civil society can still prevail.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41904704","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}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2023.2226247
A. L. Piccolo
ABSTRACT Studies indicate that the success of anticorruption reforms depends upon the support of civil society actors (CSAs), whereas bottom-up initiatives need a certain degree of vertical integration with political elites to bring about long-lasting change. Indeed, anticorruption is a multi-actor field populated by political parties, the media, NGOs, interest groups, and social movements. Each of these actors shapes the outcome of the anticorruption struggle, bringing to the fore its logic, goals, strategies, and, most importantly, its discourses. Studies on frames and discourses have shown how corruption narratives inform policymaking. However, few studies have examined institutional and civil society anticorruption frames and their impact on anticorruption policies simultaneously. Focusing on the Italian case through a frame analysis of parties’, regulatory agencies’, and CSAs’ documents, newspapers, and interviews, this work looks at processes of frame alignment and frame disputes between civic and institutional actors and tries to assess their impact in shaping the Whistleblowing Protection Act (2017). The article aims at reintroducing the analysis of grassroots frames alongside institutional ones to understand the impact of discourses on anticorruption policymaking.
{"title":"Anticorruption frames: Bridging accountability","authors":"A. L. Piccolo","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2226247","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2226247","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Studies indicate that the success of anticorruption reforms depends upon the support of civil society actors (CSAs), whereas bottom-up initiatives need a certain degree of vertical integration with political elites to bring about long-lasting change. Indeed, anticorruption is a multi-actor field populated by political parties, the media, NGOs, interest groups, and social movements. Each of these actors shapes the outcome of the anticorruption struggle, bringing to the fore its logic, goals, strategies, and, most importantly, its discourses. Studies on frames and discourses have shown how corruption narratives inform policymaking. However, few studies have examined institutional and civil society anticorruption frames and their impact on anticorruption policies simultaneously. Focusing on the Italian case through a frame analysis of parties’, regulatory agencies’, and CSAs’ documents, newspapers, and interviews, this work looks at processes of frame alignment and frame disputes between civic and institutional actors and tries to assess their impact in shaping the Whistleblowing Protection Act (2017). The article aims at reintroducing the analysis of grassroots frames alongside institutional ones to understand the impact of discourses on anticorruption policymaking.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45706197","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}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2023.2239382
Jessi Hanson-DeFusco, Ernest Garnark Smith, Alexis McMaster
ABSTRACT Civil society can serve as a vital mechanism for monitoring and accountability in partnership with non-profit organizations and government agencies, in the global South. This research evaluates the impact of a 2018–2020 project empowering Liberian civil society organizations (CSOs) to supplement health initiatives to mitigate gender-based sexual violence in schools. Some scholars may question the capacity of CSOs in low-income settings to manage interdisciplinary health interventions. When provided with adequate training and support, third sector actors can serve as an added mechanism of advocacy, monitoring, and accountability, particularly in resource-poor environments. This study presents a statistical analysis of survey data collected at baseline and endline of 30 participating CSOs trained to monitor and prevent sexual violence in 88 schools in randomly-selected communities within 15 districts. Representatives of selected CSOs from project sites receive ongoing training and mentoring by non-profit social workers to conduct evidence-based research to 1) monitor local schools for gender-based inequity and sexual violence of students and 2) support immediate improvements within learning environments. Results indicate that the CSO intervention offers significant, efficient, and rapid change, particularly in harmful learning environments.
{"title":"Efficacy of civil society organizations to mitigate gender-based sexual violence in schools, in Liberia","authors":"Jessi Hanson-DeFusco, Ernest Garnark Smith, Alexis McMaster","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2239382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2239382","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Civil society can serve as a vital mechanism for monitoring and accountability in partnership with non-profit organizations and government agencies, in the global South. This research evaluates the impact of a 2018–2020 project empowering Liberian civil society organizations (CSOs) to supplement health initiatives to mitigate gender-based sexual violence in schools. Some scholars may question the capacity of CSOs in low-income settings to manage interdisciplinary health interventions. When provided with adequate training and support, third sector actors can serve as an added mechanism of advocacy, monitoring, and accountability, particularly in resource-poor environments. This study presents a statistical analysis of survey data collected at baseline and endline of 30 participating CSOs trained to monitor and prevent sexual violence in 88 schools in randomly-selected communities within 15 districts. Representatives of selected CSOs from project sites receive ongoing training and mentoring by non-profit social workers to conduct evidence-based research to 1) monitor local schools for gender-based inequity and sexual violence of students and 2) support immediate improvements within learning environments. Results indicate that the CSO intervention offers significant, efficient, and rapid change, particularly in harmful learning environments.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47859441","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}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2023.2239383
Tania Haddad
ABSTRACT Non Profit associations in Lebanon are governed by the 1909 Law of Associations, an Ottoman law predating the creation of the state that was based on the French law of associations. The main aim of this paper is to assess the extent to which the law offers an enabling environment for associations’ development in Lebanon. Based on 15 interviews conducted with experts and activists in the field, the main argument this paper presents is that although the law itself is fair and supportive to associations, the vagueness of its wording and interference by Lebanese state government are hindering the development of associations in Lebanon. In other words, analyzing the Law of Associations as it is written is inadequate to comprehend the state of associations. Lebanon’s historical, political and social context must be taken into account to shed light on the law’s implementation. The paper argues that the absence of a comprehensive programme of action or a movement to defend the autonomy of association could be encouraging the state administration to interfere in associations’ internal governance. Civil society has a long road ahead of it in order to reach full independence.
{"title":"Governance of the nonprofit sector in Lebanon between theory and practice","authors":"Tania Haddad","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2239383","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2239383","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Non Profit associations in Lebanon are governed by the 1909 Law of Associations, an Ottoman law predating the creation of the state that was based on the French law of associations. The main aim of this paper is to assess the extent to which the law offers an enabling environment for associations’ development in Lebanon. Based on 15 interviews conducted with experts and activists in the field, the main argument this paper presents is that although the law itself is fair and supportive to associations, the vagueness of its wording and interference by Lebanese state government are hindering the development of associations in Lebanon. In other words, analyzing the Law of Associations as it is written is inadequate to comprehend the state of associations. Lebanon’s historical, political and social context must be taken into account to shed light on the law’s implementation. The paper argues that the absence of a comprehensive programme of action or a movement to defend the autonomy of association could be encouraging the state administration to interfere in associations’ internal governance. Civil society has a long road ahead of it in order to reach full independence.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47939051","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}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2023.2229918
Mateus Schweyher, Turid Misje
ABSTRACT This article explores the positions of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) on providing humanitarian assistance to European Union (EU) citizens with limited rights to public welfare services in Norway through 19 interviews with leaders of humanitarian services run by CSOs in Oslo. The article shows a contradictory picture. On one side, leaders expressed awareness and concern regarding risks associated with the provision of humanitarian services in a country with a comprehensive and ambitious welfare state. These include creating parallel welfare services based on charity rather than rights, and that such services may hide structural violence, or give it a humane façade, thus potentially contributing to the legitimacy and preservation of exclusionary welfare policies and practices. On the other side, service leaders were sceptical towards granting all EU citizens equal access to public welfare benefits and services and reported advocating for the expansion of humanitarian services rather than inclusionary rights for all EU citizens in Norway. We suggest that this may indicate an acceptance of the EU’s principle of conditionality of welfare support on employment history, and a limited willingness or capacity of CSOs to engage in advocacy that could contribute to alternative narratives about EU citizenship and challenge structural exclusion.
{"title":"Undermining, defending or expanding EU citizenship? CSOs’ positions on providing humanitarian assistance to EU citizens with limited rights to public welfare services in Norway","authors":"Mateus Schweyher, Turid Misje","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2229918","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2229918","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores the positions of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) on providing humanitarian assistance to European Union (EU) citizens with limited rights to public welfare services in Norway through 19 interviews with leaders of humanitarian services run by CSOs in Oslo. The article shows a contradictory picture. On one side, leaders expressed awareness and concern regarding risks associated with the provision of humanitarian services in a country with a comprehensive and ambitious welfare state. These include creating parallel welfare services based on charity rather than rights, and that such services may hide structural violence, or give it a humane façade, thus potentially contributing to the legitimacy and preservation of exclusionary welfare policies and practices. On the other side, service leaders were sceptical towards granting all EU citizens equal access to public welfare benefits and services and reported advocating for the expansion of humanitarian services rather than inclusionary rights for all EU citizens in Norway. We suggest that this may indicate an acceptance of the EU’s principle of conditionality of welfare support on employment history, and a limited willingness or capacity of CSOs to engage in advocacy that could contribute to alternative narratives about EU citizenship and challenge structural exclusion.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43550203","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}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2023.2226253
Joel Tyler Alba
ABSTRACT This paper investigates civil society’s metamorphosis through the lens of intersectional risk theory. While numerous studies interrogate civil society’s spatiotemporal evolution, there has yet to be an analysis of how and why the Intersectional Activist has gained such prominence. The interdisciplinary nexus between intersectionality, social capital, and civil society to that of the risk discipline requires a multi-tiered methodology to map the contours of this metamorphosis. Therefore, the choice of a hermeneutically-framed, exploratory case study, supplemented by semi-structured interviews, structures the research. The results support that the Intersectional Activist is a byproduct of capitalistic, multiply-burdening institutions of oppression. However, these overlapping institutions form a pressurized moulding onto the individuals’ tabula rasa, whereby a transversal, paradigm-defiant coalition insurrects against hegemonic systems. Reactivating the five capacities of the self, knowledge, processes, agency, and power to bridge cross-sectorial mobilization, the Intersectional Activist is a direct riposte to the Precarious Risk Society. The collective has now become the connective–manifesting in the intersectional plight against systemic injustice, the Matrix of Power reactivates the capacities through an association of difference, reconstituting the nature of social capital. Within this reconstitution, the transversal activist realizes themselves in a new connective frontier, for they are intersectionality incarnate.
{"title":"Intersectionality incarnate: A case study of civil society, social capital, and its metamorphosis","authors":"Joel Tyler Alba","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2226253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2226253","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper investigates civil society’s metamorphosis through the lens of intersectional risk theory. While numerous studies interrogate civil society’s spatiotemporal evolution, there has yet to be an analysis of how and why the Intersectional Activist has gained such prominence. The interdisciplinary nexus between intersectionality, social capital, and civil society to that of the risk discipline requires a multi-tiered methodology to map the contours of this metamorphosis. Therefore, the choice of a hermeneutically-framed, exploratory case study, supplemented by semi-structured interviews, structures the research. The results support that the Intersectional Activist is a byproduct of capitalistic, multiply-burdening institutions of oppression. However, these overlapping institutions form a pressurized moulding onto the individuals’ tabula rasa, whereby a transversal, paradigm-defiant coalition insurrects against hegemonic systems. Reactivating the five capacities of the self, knowledge, processes, agency, and power to bridge cross-sectorial mobilization, the Intersectional Activist is a direct riposte to the Precarious Risk Society. The collective has now become the connective–manifesting in the intersectional plight against systemic injustice, the Matrix of Power reactivates the capacities through an association of difference, reconstituting the nature of social capital. Within this reconstitution, the transversal activist realizes themselves in a new connective frontier, for they are intersectionality incarnate.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48777943","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}
ABSTRACT Drawing on research conducted with a range of actors in Armenia during the aftermath of the 2020 war over Nagorno Karabakh, we examine the potential and limits of local agency peacebuilding. In examining how agency is manifested and constrained in situations of conflict, we draw on social and political theories of agency and power to consider the dialogic interplay between actors, structures and ideas. By adopting the framework of discursive institutionalism, we analyze the importance of ideas in shaping politics and policy. We argue that in the field of peacebuilding in Armenia, the agency of local civil society actors is on the one hand affected by the liberal peacebuilding paradigm advanced by international actors and on the other hand, by hegemonic State and societal discourses about the conflict. Together, these have engendered forms of disciplinary power that have led to self-censorship and reticence among civil society actors, limiting their agency in peacebuilding.
{"title":"Why ideas matter: Exploring the potential and limits of local civil society agency in peacebuilding","authors":"Armine Ishkanian, Arpy Manusyan, Mariam Khalatyan, Nvard Margaryan","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2206156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2206156","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Drawing on research conducted with a range of actors in Armenia during the aftermath of the 2020 war over Nagorno Karabakh, we examine the potential and limits of local agency peacebuilding. In examining how agency is manifested and constrained in situations of conflict, we draw on social and political theories of agency and power to consider the dialogic interplay between actors, structures and ideas. By adopting the framework of discursive institutionalism, we analyze the importance of ideas in shaping politics and policy. We argue that in the field of peacebuilding in Armenia, the agency of local civil society actors is on the one hand affected by the liberal peacebuilding paradigm advanced by international actors and on the other hand, by hegemonic State and societal discourses about the conflict. Together, these have engendered forms of disciplinary power that have led to self-censorship and reticence among civil society actors, limiting their agency in peacebuilding.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47180963","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}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2023.2206147
A. Meeuwisse, Roberto Scaramuzzino
ABSTRACT This article investigates how Swedish civil society organizations (CSOs) legitimize their leaders through online press releases presenting newly elected or recruited leaders, and which leadership ideals that are reproduced. The aim is to analyze how leaders are socially legitimized through leadership ideals in a time of increased demands on CSOs. The study moves away from the dominant perspective on leaders as actors contributing to the organizations, in favour of studying leaders as organizational assets whose image needs to be handled by the organizations. The article is based on a qualitative analysis of 54 online statements from Swedish peak CSOs, focusing on how the leaders are presented concerning personal characteristics, qualifications and missions. The results of the study indicate that Swedish CSO leaders are mainly legitimized with reference to traditional popular movement leadership ideals. Such ideals seem to serve as legitimators regardless of the type of organization. However, there are also legitimacy claims linked to managerial and administrative skills in line with third sector leadership ideals, suggesting potentially conflicting expectations on CSO leaders. These findings can be related to trends such as New Public Management, which push civil society actors to develop new skills and networks and to become more business-like.
{"title":"Producing leadership legitimacy in civil society – A study of online presentations of leaders in Sweden","authors":"A. Meeuwisse, Roberto Scaramuzzino","doi":"10.1080/17448689.2023.2206147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2023.2206147","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article investigates how Swedish civil society organizations (CSOs) legitimize their leaders through online press releases presenting newly elected or recruited leaders, and which leadership ideals that are reproduced. The aim is to analyze how leaders are socially legitimized through leadership ideals in a time of increased demands on CSOs. The study moves away from the dominant perspective on leaders as actors contributing to the organizations, in favour of studying leaders as organizational assets whose image needs to be handled by the organizations. The article is based on a qualitative analysis of 54 online statements from Swedish peak CSOs, focusing on how the leaders are presented concerning personal characteristics, qualifications and missions. The results of the study indicate that Swedish CSO leaders are mainly legitimized with reference to traditional popular movement leadership ideals. Such ideals seem to serve as legitimators regardless of the type of organization. However, there are also legitimacy claims linked to managerial and administrative skills in line with third sector leadership ideals, suggesting potentially conflicting expectations on CSO leaders. These findings can be related to trends such as New Public Management, which push civil society actors to develop new skills and networks and to become more business-like.","PeriodicalId":46013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Civil Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45013792","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}
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