Civic Capacity: A Configurational Typology of Civil Society Organizations and Engagement Dilemmas

• In Event: Political Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Organizational Politics (Table 8)

Abstract

Civil society organizations (CSOs) are often viewed as engines of democratic participation, yet their capacity to sustain inclusive engagement varies considerably and remains poorly understood. Some organizations build inclusive and scalable engagement, while others remain exclusionary and polarize publics. Even inclusionary organizations run the risk of fragmentation, stagnation, or collapse. Existing theories emphasize network structure (bonding vs. bridging) or civic norms, but struggle to explain this variation at the organizational level. We develop a configurational typology of CSOs based on two dimensions—network structure (brokerage vs. closure) and normative orientation (inclusive vs. exclusive)—yielding four ideal types: universalist, communitarian, populist, and particularist. Each configuration generates a distinct civic engagement dilemma: a patterned tension between maintaining normative coherence and extending engagement beyond core constituencies. We argue that civic capacity— the organizational ability to sustain inclusive engagement across social differences —is a dynamic and reversible organizational accomplishment, shaped by how CSOs navigate these dilemmas over time. These trajectories reveal that civic capacity is systematically easier to erode than to build — a finding with direct implications for how we understand the conditions under which democratic participation in civil society can be sustained.

Authors

• Sumrin Kalia, Free University of Berlin

• Gregory Jackson, King's College London