The spirit of the civil sphere: Activating static conceptions of volunteerism and citizenship

Abstract

Tocqueville's theory emerged from a social movement–infested society rather than from the rather bucolic and static American democracy that he sometimes portrays. And while Putnam (2001) and others try to resurrect this cooperative view of society using the concept of social capital, this approach is inadequate to explain major changes in society and, indeed, only repeats power resources theory with a different linguistic cloak.

Citation

Janoski, T. (2009), "The spirit of the civil sphere: Activating static conceptions of volunteerism and citizenship", Enjolras, B. and Henrik Sivesind, K. (Ed.) Civil Society in Comparative Perspective (Comparative Social Research, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 263-293. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0195-6310(2009)0000026015