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The elites of civil society – status, influence and contestation

Fri, July 19, 9:00 to 10:30am, TBA

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel analyses leaders at the top of civil society organisations (CSOs) and movements and introduces the concept of civil society elites. Despite a long fascination in the social sciences regarding the processes leading to the concentration of power and resources in different arenas of social, political, and financial life (e.g. Khan 2012), scholars have only recently started to explore the possibility of a civil society elite or the implications of this for the roles that civil society can and is expected to play (Altermark et al. 2022a; Johansson and Meeuwisse 2023; Johansson and Uhlin 2020; Scaramuzzino 2020; Sevelsted 2022). The reason may be that the concept comes across as counter-intuitive, or even paradoxical. It goes against mainstream understandings of civil society as a sphere for citizen mobilisation and participation. While it is widely held that civil society performs key functions in liberal democracies and forms a sphere for citizen mobilisation and participation in-between political elections and alongside political institutions (Diamond 1994), contemporary civil society shows anti-democratic and elitist tendencies.

Recent developments point to the concentration of valuable civic resources into the hands of a few powerful organisations and their leaders (Altermark et al 2022b; Johansson and Uhlin 2020; Lindellee and Scaramuzzino, 2020). Large organizations build oligarchic hierarchies that form civil society elites who are socialised into powerful institutions and who interact and integrate with other elite groups (Mills 2000; Michels 1962). As professionals take over, beneficiaries and members risk being reduced to ‘donors’, ‘checkbook participants’, or ‘credit card suppliers’ (Skocpol, 2003). Such resource concentration is contested by activists who mobilise against injustice caused by states, markets, or other elite groups, but also claim that civil society leaders must ‘hold up the mirror’ to themselves since they control power not theirs, but members (Civicus 2020; Ivanovska Hadjievska 2023). Political elites similarly accuse civil society leaders of being partisan political actors disguised as nonpartisan civic actors following the logic of acting as a populist leader (Korolzcuk 2022).

These conceptual inconsistencies and societal developments make civil society elites societally relevant and scientifically important to explore. Through a series of papers, we aim to investigate how civil society elites handle the paradoxical position the possess, being socialized into elite circles while owing their power to the democratic expectations of civil society. The panel engages and explores questions linked to how civil society elites are formed and contested, as well as what types of capital and resources that forms the basis of their elite status. The included papers thus offer an original combination of civil society and elite research. The panel furthermore contributes to emerging debates on inequality in volunteering (Hustinx et al 2021) or critical charity studies (Coule et al 2022), which recently have started to address resource and power asymmetries within civil societies and between actors.

References

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

Civicus (2020) Holding the Mirror up to Ourselves: Diversity and Inclusion Practices and Trends in Civil Society Organisation, Civicus.

Coule, T. M., Dodge, J., & Eikenberry, A. M. (2022). Toward a Typology of Critical Nonprofit Studies: A Literature Review. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 51(3), 478-506.

Diamond, L. (1994) Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation, Journal of Democracy, 5(3): 4-17.

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

Hwang, H. and W.W. Powell (2009) The Rationalization of Charity: The Influences of Professionalism in the Nonprofit Sector, Administrative Science Quarterly, 54(2): 268-298.

Ivanovska Hadjievska, M. (2022) Civil society elites’ challengers in the UK: A frontlash/backlash perspective, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221139806

Johansson, H. and A. Uhlin (2020) Civil Society Elites: A Research Agenda, Politics and Governance, 8(3): 82-85.

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

Korolczuk, E. (2022) Challenging Civil Society Elites in Poland: The Dynamics and Strategies of Civil Society Actors, East European Politics and Societies, https://doi.org/10.1177/08883254221132282

Lindellee, J. and R. Scaramuzzino (2020) Can EU Civil Society Elites Burst the Brussels Bubble? Civil Society Leaders’ Career Trajectories, Politics and Governance, 8(3): 86-96.

Michels, R. (1962) Political Parties, New York: Free Press.

Mills, C. W. (1956/2000) The Power Elite, New York: Oxford University Press.

Sevelsted, A. (2022). Moral Elites and the De-Paradoxification of Danish Social Policy Between Civil Society and State (1849–2022). VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-022-00509-z

Scaramuzzino, R. (2020). Perception of societal influence among civil society leaders–an elite perspective. Journal of Civil Society, 16(2), 174–190.

Skocpol, T. (2003) Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

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