CSOs’ Political Engagement

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 8 deals with CSOs’ varying propensities towards engaging in political activities and the different breadths of their political action repertoires. It theorizes the implications of investing in political activity as a collective, non-exclusive incentive from which non-members also profit (making it less effective to sustain member support than selective incentives restricted to members). Features of a ‘voluntary association’ are expected to invite a different balance between collective (outward-orientated) and selective (inward-orientated) incentive provision than features of a ‘professionalized voluntary organization’. Being orientated towards member interests and being composed of individual members—both voluntary association features—have significant negative relationships with political engagement. In contrast, all characteristics associated with professionalized voluntary organizations—professionalization, bureaucratization, and state funding dependency—relate to political engagement positively. These findings challenge traditional ideas that ‘voluntary associations’ constitute a cornerstone of political civil society, while the (often problematized) features of the ‘professionalized voluntary organization’ appear as enabling factors that allow for CSO voices to be heard in the political process.