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In 1920 Margaret Sanger called voluntary motherhood “the key to the temple of liberty” and noted that women were “rising in fundamental revolt” to claim their right to determine their own reproductive fate (Rothman, 2000, p. 73). Decades later Barbara Katz Rothman reflected on the social, political and legal changes produced by reproductive-rights feminists since that time. She wrote: So the reproductive-rights feminists of the 1970s won, and abortion is available – just as the reproductive-rights feminists of the 1920s won, and contraception is available. But in another sense, we did not win. We did not win, could not win, because Sanger was right. What we really wanted was the fundamental revolt, the “key to the temple of liberty.” A doctor’s fitting for a diaphragm, or a clinic appointment for an abortion, is not the revolution. It is not even a woman-centered approach to reproduction (2000, p. 79).

Purpose – This chapter assesses the role of self-help groups within the emerging civil society in two transitional economies, Croatia and Slovenia, focusing on the impact of relationships with health or social care professionals and the state.

Methodology – Methods include participant observation, interviews, and document analysis of 31 groups studied intermittently from 2001 to 2007.

Findings – Self-help groups range from those three decades old to those dealing with “new social problems.” Groups, and the third sector generally, remain essentially dependent on the state. Few exist separately from formal service organizations. Those closely linked with medical institutions are challenged by state retrenchment and privatization. Others contend with funding instability, and Western models of non-profit development are expanding. Relationships with professionals are neither subservient nor independent; instead, groups act as corollaries and educators to the professional realm.

Implications, limitations, and value – Findings suggest more nuances in self-help groups' relations with the state and professionals than found in Western settings. This may illustrate both the potential and the limits of citizen involvement in new non-governmental sectors. It also demonstrates how relations between professionals and self-help groups depend on social and material relations well beyond the domain of systems of care. While specific findings cannot be generalized beyond the research settings, the study shows the importance of understanding such groups within social and political contexts. Contributions to civil society here included re-making public meanings, identities, and relations with professionalized systems. Further comparative assessment of self-help associations is essential to theory on the third sector in civil society.

This paper examines whether affiliation strategies used by social movement organizations to establish institutional linkages assure survival. Several streams within both social movement and organization theories suggest contrasting expectations. Two core research questions are proposed: how does strategic affiliation, as well as increasing legitimation, alter social movement organizations’ longevity, and how does the evolution of the movement condition these dynamics? Our answer focuses on the self-help/mutual-aid movement and the institutionalization of national self-help/mutual-aid organizations. Analyses comparing economic, political and symbolic means of survival at the population-of-organizations level and organizational level, and across the history of the movement, show that professional and political alliances and legitimation impact the longevity of self-help/mutual-aid organizations in unexpected ways. For instance, as the number of political alliances at the population level increases, the likelihood of organizational survival declines, although political alliances at the individual organizational level are beneficial for an organization. These relationships change dramatically as the movement matures. Implications for integrating social movement and organizations theories are discussed.

This paper analyzes a multidimensional model of organizational legitimacy, competencies, and resources in order to develop the linkage between institutional and resource-based perspectives by systematically detailing relationships among these factors and organizational viability. The underlying mechanisms of isomorphism and market partitioning serve as a point of departure by which the effects on organizational persistence of two sociocultural processes, cultural (constitutive) legitimation and sociopolitical (regulative) legitimation, are distinguished. Using data on 589 national self-help/mutual-aid organizations, this chapter explores how isomorphism and market partitioning foster legitimacy and promote organizational viability. Results show that the more differentiated an organization’s core competencies and resources, the greater the sociopolitical legitimacy; the more isomorphic an organization’s competencies and resources, the greater the cultural legitimacy. The latter isomorphic processes, however, do not promote greater organizational viability. In fact, while isomorphism legitimates with respect to cultural recognition, it is heterogeneity, not homogeneity, that promotes organizational survival.

The process of knowledge production is usually assigned to scientists who use specific methods to extract knowledge from someone else's experience. Usually this includes collecting, aggregating and interpreting data from an uninvolved point of view; that is, from the outside. This procedure is supposed to guarantee objectivity and generalisation. Many child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors reject such an approach that turns them into objects again. This presents a problem for research because it limits the number and contribution of potential participants and can lead to bias. In self-help groups of CSA survivors, an enormous amount of experiential knowledge accumulates, and sometimes this is transferred into more than only individually valid knowledge. Based on this experience and aiming for more agency of CSA Survivors, a group of adult survivors and researchers developed a new approach to research. It focuses on the development of self-organised research, which enables survivors of sexualised violence to practice research without losing agency. They are indispensable and elementary parts in all phases of the process. This chapter shows one way of formalising this process so quality criteria can be developed and applied. Following the presented approach, evaluation of the presented methods is the appropriate next step because self-help groups give reason to estimate significant outcomes. These outcomes not only enable self-help groups of CSA survivors to incorporate new methods but also include the chance to empower adults, children or youth who have been victims of sexualised violence.

Purpose – This research considers how self-help groups (SHGs) and self-help organizations (SHOs) contribute to consumerist trends in two different societies: United States and United Kingdom. How do the health care systems and the voluntary sectors affect the kinds of social changes that SHGs/SHOs make?

Methodology/approach – A review of research on the role of SHGs/SHOs in contributing to national health social movements in the UK and US was made. Case studies of the UK and the US compare the characteristics of their health care systems and their voluntary sector. Research reviews of two community level self-help groups in each country describe the kinds of social changes they made.

Findings – The research review verified that SHGs/SHOs contribute to national level health social movements for patient consumerism. The case studies showed that community level SHGs/SHOs successfully made the same social changes but on a smaller scale as the national movements, and the health care system affects the kinds of community changes made.

Research limitations – A limited number of SHGs/SHOs within only two societies were studied. Additional SHGs/SHOs within a variety of societies need to be studied.

Originality/value of chapter – Community SHGs/SHOs are often trivialized by social scientists as just inward-oriented support groups, but this chapter shows that local groups contribute to patient consumerism and social changes but in ways that depend on the kind of health care system and societal context.