VOLUNTEERING IN CROSSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: INITIAL COMPARISONS Helmut Anheiler & Lester Salamon 2001
This paper uses the social origins theory to put volunteering in perspective, both in terms of how it relates to the nonprofit sector, and state-society relations at large. For example, in liberal nonprofit regimes, volunteering plays economically and politically the most important role. It is part of the cultural repertoires of these countries, and typically expected from citizens. In corporatist nonprofit regimes, volunteering is less pronounced and frequently stands in an instrumental and somewhat strained relationship with the state. In social democratic regimes, such strains are typically absent, and the relationship between volunteering and the state is much less instrumental. Volunteering is less linked to service provision, where the state remains dominant, based on a broad political consensus. Volunteering is thus far more a matter of communitybuilding, life style, and recreation. Finally, statist societies have traditionally found no special place for volunteering in the way their societies are structured.
Yet, even in some statist societies, the public recognition and role of volunteers seems to be changing. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, Japan has become active in the proportion of volunteer programs, both domestically as well as internationally. Likewise, Germany is beginning to rebrand volunteering, searching for new terms and mechanisms to engage would be volunteers. Behind these efforts is the ongoing process to negotiate the public and private involvement of citizens in societies that have become increasingly diverse, mobile, fast changing, and ever more part of a global economy. With these developments, the meaning, roles, and patterns of volunteering are changing, too. Whatever these changes imply in the end, they will probably result in greater importance and recognition of private voluntary activities for the public good.
