Ebook: The Values of Volunteering: Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Volunteering is one of those phenomena which, despite the limited number of people actually involved in it, is seen as highly important for the proper functioning of society. In fact, volunteering and active participation in voluntary associations are considered to be key components of civil society; it is felt that they generate social cohesion and societal self-regulation as well as strengthening political democracy by developing individual citizenship and organizing countervailing powers. Issues such as these have gained momentum in recent years, especially since Putnam's publications in the 1990s on civic community and democracy in Italy and on the decline of social capital in the United States. However, interest in these issues in fact dates back to the time of the Civic Culture project carried out in the 1950s and 1960s by Almond and Verba, and even much earlier to Tocqueville's famous study Democracy in America in the 1830s. All of these studies, and many more, stress the importance of voluntary civic engagement for the development and maintenance of civilized societal cohesion and political democracy. This research tradition addresses volunteering as just one form of voluntary social and political involvement that might well be linked with other forms, such as passive and active membership of voluntary associations, incidental political activism, or individual involvement in public discourse. However, most studies on volunteering are written in another tradition that is more specifically directed toward direct helping behavior, service delivery, and unpaid work.

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The Values of Volunteering examines volunteering in detail from a civil society perspective, using empirical data garnered from various sources for countries all over the globe. The contributions in this title deal with a broad spectrum of questions, ranging from the diversity, social and cultural determinants and organizational settings of volunteering, to its possible individual, social, and political effects.
The Values of Volunteering explains not only the differences and similarities in volunteering between countries and the conditions that may be conducive to or hinder volunteering, it also discusses:

-Why people volunteer;
-How volunteers relate to each other and to the people they want to help;
-The ideals volunteers wish to promote;
-The diversity of and developments in volunteering;
-Future trends;
-The relationships between volunteers and between volunteers and clients and organizations;
-And more.

This useful new resource places volunteering in a broader theoretical and empirical framework of value shifts and political democracy.

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The Values of Volunteering examines volunteering in detail from a civil society perspective, using empirical data garnered from various sources for countries all over the globe. The contributions in this title deal with a broad spectrum of questions, ranging from the diversity, social and cultural determinants and organizational settings of volunteering, to its possible individual, social, and political effects.
The Values of Volunteering explains not only the differences and similarities in volunteering between countries and the conditions that may be conducive to or hinder volunteering, it also discusses:

-Why people volunteer;
-How volunteers relate to each other and to the people they want to help;
-The ideals volunteers wish to promote;
-The diversity of and developments in volunteering;
-Future trends;
-The relationships between volunteers and between volunteers and clients and organizations;
-And more.

This useful new resource places volunteering in a broader theoretical and empirical framework of value shifts and political democracy.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xiv
Volunteering and Values....Pages 1-17
All in the Eyes of the Beholder?....Pages 19-34
Volunteering in Global Perspective....Pages 35-53
Modernization and Volunteering....Pages 55-70
Institutional Roots of Volunteering....Pages 71-90
Do People Who Volunteer Have a Distinctive Ethos?....Pages 91-109
A Humanistic Perspective on the Volunteer-Recipient Relationship....Pages 111-125
From Restitution to Innovation....Pages 127-142
Volunteering in Romania....Pages 143-159
Generations and Organizational Change....Pages 161-178
Volunteering, Democracy, and Democratic Attitudes....Pages 179-198
Cultivating Apathy in Voluntary Associations....Pages 199-212
Back Matter....Pages 213-226

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The Values of Volunteering examines volunteering in detail from a civil society perspective, using empirical data garnered from various sources for countries all over the globe. The contributions in this title deal with a broad spectrum of questions, ranging from the diversity, social and cultural determinants and organizational settings of volunteering, to its possible individual, social, and political effects.
The Values of Volunteering explains not only the differences and similarities in volunteering between countries and the conditions that may be conducive to or hinder volunteering, it also discusses:

-Why people volunteer;
-How volunteers relate to each other and to the people they want to help;
-The ideals volunteers wish to promote;
-The diversity of and developments in volunteering;
-Future trends;
-The relationships between volunteers and between volunteers and clients and organizations;
-And more.

This useful new resource places volunteering in a broader theoretical and empirical framework of value shifts and political democracy.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xiv
Volunteering and Values....Pages 1-17
All in the Eyes of the Beholder?....Pages 19-34
Volunteering in Global Perspective....Pages 35-53
Modernization and Volunteering....Pages 55-70
Institutional Roots of Volunteering....Pages 71-90
Do People Who Volunteer Have a Distinctive Ethos?....Pages 91-109
A Humanistic Perspective on the Volunteer-Recipient Relationship....Pages 111-125
From Restitution to Innovation....Pages 127-142
Volunteering in Romania....Pages 143-159
Generations and Organizational Change....Pages 161-178
Volunteering, Democracy, and Democratic Attitudes....Pages 179-198
Cultivating Apathy in Voluntary Associations....Pages 199-212
Back Matter....Pages 213-226
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