Preface

Abstract

Salamon and Anheier have developed a theory about civil society regimes to explain differences between groups of countries based on data from the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector project (Anheier & Salamon, 2006; Salamon & Anheier, 1998; Salamon, Sokolowski, & List, 2003). The purpose of the theory is to classify the countries into different groups in which different causal mechanisms are in operation. This echoes by and large Barrington Moore Jr.'s classification of countries according to their “routes to the modern world” (Moore, 1966) and Esping-Andersen's three welfare “regimes” (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Esping-Andersen, 1999). The assumption is that there is no single factor that can explain the size and composition of the nonprofit sector in different countries, in contrast to the economic theories of nonprofit organizations. Instead, complex relations exist between, on the one hand, social forces such as the working class, the landed and urban elites, the peasantry, and external powers, and on the other hand, social institutions like the state and the church. As a consequence, countries cluster into four types, social democratic, corporatist, statist, and liberal models, according to size of public welfare spending and scale of the nonprofit sector. The theory is used to explain current patterns in nonprofit sector size and composition when it comes to employment, revenue, expenditures, and volunteering. That means comparing only a few variables for a large number of countries.

Citation

Enjolras, B. and Henrik Sivesind, K. (2009), "Preface", Enjolras, B. and Henrik Sivesind, K. (Ed.) Civil Society in Comparative Perspective (Comparative Social Research, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. xi-xiv. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0195-6310(2009)0000026004