Volunteering and the Test of Time

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Volunteering and the Test of Time: Essays for policy, organization and research

Justin Davis Smith and Michael Locke (editors)

e-book

This book will help you:

	Explore how concepts of formal and informal volunteering have developed in this new century – including concerns that have emerged.
	Understand how volunteering is connected to changes in the relationship between government and its citizens, becoming an important public policy issue.
	“Get your feet wet” in the world of volunteering research with nine provocative, accessible, and useful essays.

Institute for Volunteering Research, 2008, 128 pages
e-book edition only: ISBN 978-1-906111-02-1

Price: US$16.00

Description

Volunteering and the Test of Time brings together a selection of articles first published in Voluntary Action, the international journal of the Institute for Volunteering Research (based in the UK), between 1998 and 2007 – a time of unprecedented public policy discussion about volunteering in the UK and around the world.. It provides a foundation for understanding the ways in which the volunteering is researched, organized and developed. Providing an in-depth exploration of topics like the management of disaster volunteers, different cultural concepts of volunteering, and new styles of youth volunteering, this book will be of interest to the practitioner and academic alike.

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Brief Excerpt

Excerpted from Ch. 2, ‘The inflatable log’: volunteering, the state and democracy:

So where does this leave us? What can we conclude about the relationship between volunteering (as a key element of civil society) and democracy? The first conclusion to draw is that things are messier than some commentators would like. It is certainly possible to make out a convincing case that civil society (and voluntary action) by generating social capital can be good for democracy. But a case can also be made for how in the wrong conditions it can be bad. Moreover, whilst it is clear that democracy can help civil society to develop it is also clear that volunteering can thrive in the most extreme totalitarian conditions.

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