A nation of organizers : the institutional origins of civic voluntarism in the United States
By: Skocpol, Theda
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Contributor(s): GANZ, Marshall | MUNSON, Ziad.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: 2000American Political Science Review 94, 3, p. 527-546Abstract: We challenge the widely held view that classic American voluntary groups were tiny,local, and disconnected from goverment. Using newly collected data to develop a theoretically framed account, we show that membership associations emerged early in U.S. history and converged toward the institutional form of the representatively governed federation. This form enabled leaders and members to spread interconnected groups across an expanding nation. At the height of local proliferation, most voluntary groups were part of regional or national federations that mirrored the structure of U.S. government. Institutionalist theories suggest reasons for this parallelism, which belies the rigid dichotomy between state and civil society that informs much curent discussion of civic engagement in thhe United States and elsewhere
| Item type | Current location | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Periódico | Biblioteca Graciliano Ramos | Periódico | Not for loan |
We challenge the widely held view that classic American voluntary groups were tiny,local, and disconnected from goverment. Using newly collected data to develop a theoretically framed account, we show that membership associations emerged early in U.S. history and converged toward the institutional form of the representatively governed federation. This form enabled leaders and members to spread interconnected groups across an expanding nation. At the height of local proliferation, most voluntary groups were part of regional or national federations that mirrored the structure of U.S. government. Institutionalist theories suggest reasons for this parallelism, which belies the rigid dichotomy between state and civil society that informs much curent discussion of civic engagement in thhe United States and elsewhere
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