Prizes and scandals. Status mobility among civil society elites

• In Event: The elites of civil society – status, influence and contestation

Abstract

Elite theory assumes elites as groups of individuals who control vast amounts of valuable resources and who are able to enact significant influence on the organization they lead and, potentially, on society (Khan 2012). As leaders of major CSO, civil society elites gain access to valuable networks and contacts (Johansson and Meeuwisse 2023, Scaramuzzino and Lindellee 2020). Their role brings know-how on how to influence politicians and attract donations from wealthy donors. Some leadership roles might also come with a substantial paycheck as they are responsible for thousands of employees and volunteers and held accountable by powerful stakeholders. While this points to the valuable social, cultural and economic forms of capital (Bourdieu 1984; 1996), civil society elites are primarily constituted by the status and social esteem accorded to them by others. Leaders of Greenpeace, Amnesty, WWF or Friends of the Earth tend to be individuals who gain recognition from being seen as champions of valuable causes and by acting as leaders of admired and trusted organizations.
This paper adopts a processual approach for the study civil society elite status. Instead of seeking to explore the status civil society elites have, we argue that this is better captured through the studying the processes by which status is gained and lost. The paper is thus inspired by a Weberian and Bourdieusian approach on status as gained through formal processes of titles and awards, yet dependent upon social relationships and social support, pointing to the ephemeral and transitionary character of elite status (Altermark et al 2022).
The paper draws on the sociology of prizes and awards and investigates the upward status transitions when civil society leaders are granted a Royal Honour in the UK. The paper draws on interviews with civil society leaders on how royal appraisal affected their status position, internally (in relation to other civil society actors) and externally (in relation to stakeholders and decision-makers). The paper also draws on the study of civil society and nonprofit scandals (e.g. Chapman et al 2022; Gibelman and Gelman 2001; 2004), yet instead of investigating the status loss (and strategies of damage control) by organisations, we seek to investigate civic scandals as elite status loss linked to individual leaders. The paper seeks to make use of official records (news reporting and social media) of recognized elite civic scandals, for instance the scandal in connection with the Kids Company, or Oxfam (e.g Goel et al 2020; Scurlock 2020). Bourdieu’s concepts of consecration and de-consecration together with Goffman’s theory on impression management will form the basis for analysis. While we find ample studies on prizes or scandals, scholars have rarely combined them and hence not provide a comprehensive theorizing on upward and downward status mobility.

Contact details: Håkan Johansson, Professor, School of Social Work, Lund University, Box 23, 22100 Lund, Sweden, Hakan.Johansson@soch.lu.se, + 46 (0)46 2220988

Altermark, N., M. I. Hadjievska, and H. Johansson (2022a) Personalisation at the top of civil societies? Legitimation claims on civil society elites in Europe, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221129390

Altermark, N., Johansson, H. & Stattin, S. (2022b) Shaping Civil Society Leaders: Horizontal and Vertical Boundary Work in Swedish Leadership Training Programmes. Voluntas. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-022-00519-x

Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction. A social critique of the judgment of taste, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1996) The Rules of Art, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Chapman, C. M., Hornsey, M. J., Gillespie, N., & Lockey, S. (2023). Nonprofit Scandals: A Systematic Review and Conceptual Framework. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 52(1_suppl), 278S-312S. https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640221129541

Dean, J. (2020), The Good Glow–Charity and the Symbolic Power of Doing Good. Bristol: Policy Press

English, J. F. (2005) The economy of prestige: Prizes, awards and the circulation of cultural value, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Frey, B. S. (2007) Awards as compensation, European Management Review, 4(1): 6–14.

Gibelman, M., & Gelman, S. R. (2001). Very public scandals: Nongovernmental organizations in trouble. Voluntas, 12(1), 49–66. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011242911726

Gibelman, M., & Gelman, S. R. (2004). A loss of credibility: Patterns of wrongdoing among nongovernmental organizations. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 15(4), 355–381. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-004-1237-7

Goel, R. K. (2020). Uncharitable acts in charity: Socioeconomic drivers of charity-related fraud. Social Science Quarterly, 101(4), 1397–1412. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12794

Hustinx, L., Grubb, A., Rameder, P. et al. Inequality in Volunteering: Building a New Research Front. Voluntas 33, 1–17 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-022-00455-w

Johansson, H. and A. Meeuwisse (eds.) (2023), Civil Society Elites. Exploring the composition, reproduction, integration, and contestation of civil society actors at the top. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Khan, S. R. (2012) The Sociology of Elites, Annual Review of Sociology, 38(1): 361–77.

LeClair, M. S. (2019). Reported instances of nonprofit corruption: Do donors respond to scandals in the charitable sector? Corporate Reputation Review, 22(2), 39–47. https://doi. org/10.1057/s41299-018-0056-5

Lindellee, J., & Scaramuzzino, R. (2020). Can EU civil society elites burst the Brussels bubble? Civil society leaders’ career trajectories. Politics and Governance, 8(3), 86–96.

Scurlock, R., Dolsak, N., & Prakash, A. (2020). Recovering from scandals: Twitter coverage of Oxfam and Save the Children scandals. Voluntas, 31(1), 94–110. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11266-019-00148-x

Author

• Håkan Johansson, Lund university