Engage for change : the role of public engagement in climate change policy

In recent years the British Government has stated explicitly its determination that citizens should contribute to the policy making process within all levels of government. The Sustainable Development Commission invited Involve to produce two papers. These have been combined into a single report that examines what the ramifications of the evolving relationship between people and government could mean for the capacity of government to tackle climate change.Publisher PD

The Terms of Involvement : A study of attempts to reform civil society's role in public decision making in Sweden​

For the better part of a century, a distinguishing feature of the Swedish democratic model has been the close relationship between organised interests and public decision makers. Yet the first decade of the twenty-first century saw a number of attempts to reform Swedish civil society’s role in decision making, purportedly to make involvement activities more inclusive, reciprocal, flexible and consequential. The aim of this thesis is to describe and understand the motivations behind and the meaning of these reform attempts. Using an interpretive research design, and drawing on constructivist institutionalist perspectives on organisational change, the study asks questions about what has driven the attempted reform, how affected actors have interpreted its meaning and consequences, and how its framing and outcomes have been affected by the fact that it was devised and implemented both in traditional organisations and in networks consisting of local and national actors from civil society and the public sector. The thesis constitutes a contribution to the constructivist institutionalist literature concerned with the micro-foundations of organisational behaviour and to the governance research literature, to which it contributes empirical insights about how governance reforms have been interpreted and rationalised in Sweden

The Terms of Involvement : A study of attempts to reform civil society's role in public decision making in Sweden​

For the better part of a century, a distinguishing feature of the Swedish democratic model has been the close relationship between organised interests and public decision makers. Yet the first decade of the twenty-first century saw a number of attempts to reform Swedish civil society’s role in decision making, purportedly to make involvement activities more inclusive, reciprocal, flexible and consequential. The aim of this thesis is to describe and understand the motivations behind and the meaning of these reform attempts. Using an interpretive research design, and drawing on constructivist institutionalist perspectives on organisational change, the study asks questions about what has driven the attempted reform, how affected actors have interpreted its meaning and consequences, and how its framing and outcomes have been affected by the fact that it was devised and implemented both in traditional organisations and in networks consisting of local and national actors from civil society and the public sector. The thesis constitutes a contribution to the constructivist institutionalist literature concerned with the micro-foundations of organisational behaviour and to the governance research literature, to which it contributes empirical insights about how governance reforms have been interpreted and rationalised in Sweden

Om idéburna organisationers särart och mervärde : en forskningskartläggning

I den här rapporten redovisas en kartläggning av forskning om idéburna organisationers särart och mervärde. Detta tema är högaktuellt i dagens diskussioner kring idéburna organisationer inom det sociala området. Har idéburna organisationer någon särart? Har de något mervärde?Uppföljning av Överenskommelsen mellan regeringen, idéburna organisationer inom det sociala området och Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting, tematisk studi

Scope and Trends of Volunteering and Associations

This chapter has two themes: (1) the scope of formal and informal volunteering and of nonprofit, voluntary, Membership Associations (MAs) in the world, by which we mean the quantitative magnitudes of these phenomena at or near the present time, and (2) the long term and recent (past few decades) trends in these magnitudes. Global data are used, when available, but we also report data for world regions and for specific nations when feasible. We also report on estimated magnitudes of MA wealth and income, the economic value of volunteering, internal structures and processes of MAs, participation rates in MAs, methodological problems, and issues regarding computer mapping of data such at that presented in this chapter. Usable knowledge, future trends, and needed research are discussed