International

Review of
Administrative
Article Sciences
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
0(0) 1–18
The state and the reconstruction ! The Author(s) 2015
of civil society Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0020852315592467
Taco Brandsen ras.sagepub.com
Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Willem Trommel
VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Bram Verschuere
Ghent University, Belgium

Abstract
The current relationship between the state and civil society in Europe is a curious and
historically unique one. This is no longer a situation in which participation and associ-
ation prepare citizens for the offices of the state; rather, it is the state urging a some-
times-reluctant citizenry to engage actively in civil society. This phenomenon stems
from a combination of changes in prevailing governance paradigms and of the more
general process of social liquefaction. In the article, we analyse these two intertwining
trends and discuss the new type of relationship between the state and civil society that
may be emerging.

Points for practitioners

The article puts the current vogue for renewed state–civil society relationships in a
larger context. It shows that, however commendable many initiatives may be, there is
the risk that the desire on the part of governments for their citizens to participate and
self-organize may lead the state to take over such initiatives, leading to a manufactured
civil society that has little to do with spontaneous citizen initiatives. Another possible
consequence is that truly spontaneous citizen initiatives will shun collaboration with the
state and focus only inwards, to the detriment of broader public values. Therefore, in
this area, the state must strike a delicate balance between encouragement and restraint.

Keywords
administration and democracy, citizen participation, civil society, public administration,
public management, third sector

Corresponding author:
Taco Brandsen, Radboud University Nijmegen, Institute for Management Research, PO Box 9108, Nijmegen,
6500 HK, The Netherlands.
Email: t.brandsen@fm.ru.nl
2 International Review of Administrative Sciences 0(0)

(Governmental) Expectations towards a diverse and changing

civil society
Governments, from the local to the central level, increasingly express their desire to
engage civil society, which is regarded as instrumental in dealing with contempor-
ary societal issues. Well-known examples are the Big Society in the UK and the
‘Doe-Democratie’ in the Netherlands (Van de Wijdeven, 2012), as well as the many
efforts that local governments in a lot of countries put into participation or co-
production. Whether these intentions are politically/ideologically driven, or
whether the rationale is financial austerity, these governments all have to face
the fact that civil society is not a homogeneous artefact to deal with. Rather,
contemporary civil society is diverse and continuously changing.

A diverse and changing civil society

The current relationship between the state and civil society in Europe is a curious
and historically unique one, which will no doubt keep researchers occupied for
years to come.1 In order to understand current state–civil society relationships, the
Tocquevillian conceptualization of civil society needs to be re-examined in the light
of contemporary developments. The bottom line of Toquevillian thinking is that
civil society should be regarded (and preserved) as a ‘self-regulating universe of
voluntary associations committed to be protected from intrusion by the state on
rights and freedoms’ (Edwards, 2004: 7). Scholars like Putnam can be situated in
this line of thought, given the value they place upon voluntary associations in
‘curbing the power of centralizing institutions, protecting pluralism, and nurturing
constructive social norms like ‘‘trust and cooperation’’’ (Edwards, 2004: 7).
Although building social capital and defending pluralism is still a valued role
played by civil society, it plays two other important societal roles (see, e.g.,
Anheier, 2005: 82–83): service delivery, mainly via private, non-profit organizations
in sectors like education and health care; and expression, via organizations that are
active in civic advocacy or stand up for a cause (like human rights or the environ-
ment), or that play a representative role (like unions or consumer organizations).
These roles are performed in a context in which traditional forms of (ideologically
or religiously driven) social organization are in a process of reorientation or, as
Bauman (2000) has argued, even decline. Various drivers behind this development
have been identified, notably, individualization, changing life patterns, and chan-
ging government–civil society relations.
Moreover, although civil society is often portrayed as an actor, it is no more
than a cover term for a heterogeneous collection of organizations and initiatives
with different roles and functions in a changing context. Evers and Laville (2004:
17) position civil society in the centre of a welfare triangle, in between the spheres
of state (public agencies), market (private firms) and community (households and
families) (see also Pestoff, 1992). Ideal-typically, civil society organizations are
private, not-for-profit and formal organizations, and can, as such, be discerned
Brandsen et al. 3

from public agencies or private firms. Within this broad category, there is a lot of
diversity, however, leading to hybridity. Civil society organizations rarely are ideal-
typical in reality (Brandsen et al., 2005; Evers, 2005; Hustinx et al., 2014). We
discuss two examples of ‘types’ of civil organizations to illustrate this hybridity.
To begin with, in the welfare triangle, many non-profit organizations delivering
services (being part of civil society) have moved in the direction of the sphere of the
state or the market. Welfare state growth propelled an era of ‘big government’
during the 1970s and 1980s. Part of the result, in many jurisdictions, was an
increased collaboration between states and non-profit organizations: states com-
missioned services in return for subsidies, leading to a situation of third-party
government in which governments and non-profit sectors became ‘interdependent’
(Salamon, 1995). For example, service-delivering non-profits in welfare, education
or health care often adopt features of state agencies. They deliver what we consider
to be public services, are often dependent on the state for their funding and face an
accountability regime in relation to the government that subsidizes them. The result
of this ‘third-party government’, present in large parts of society, was that the
increased collaboration between civil society and the state in the provision of
social services led to hybridization in service-delivering civil society non-profits
(see earlier): they are becoming more ‘public’ and less ‘civil society’ in the original
Toquevillian meaning because they are subsidized by public money, implement
public policy programmes and are held accountable by the public commissioners.
Also, many of these non-profits tend to gravitate towards the market sphere in the
welfare triangle. In the case that regulation forces them to operate on liberalized
markets or to behave increasingly managerial, private non-profits resemble private
market organizations.
Contemporary governments thus aim to shift responsibility for public service
delivery to civil society, yet this also seems to imply that the latter’s activities must
be redirected towards the policy objectives of government (an echo of what was
happening under New Public Management (NPM)). The result is a real risk that
many of these organizations lose contact with their traditional member groups and,
by implication, also may lose their original legitimacy as independent service
providers.
Second, we see the emergence of more informal, temporary and single-issue
organizations that operate on the border between civil society and ‘communities’:
they show features of informal, small-scale communities, hence moving in the dir-
ection of communities in the welfare triangle of Evers and Laville. These civil
society organizations are often local initiatives, grown from the bottom up and
dealing with new societal issues like clean energy, urban agriculture, climate or
neighbourhood redevelopment, often long before these problems appear on the
radars of the public sector (De Rynck and Verschuere, 2014). Many of these organ-
izations seem to combine roles: they stand up for a cause (a new societal issue) via
the delivery of new kinds of services (e.g. clean energy, the sustainable use of
public space). In a certain sense, we may classify these parts of civil society as
‘neo-Toquevillian’ as these organizations represent diversity and pluralism
4 International Review of Administrative Sciences 0(0)

(e.g. in the issues they deal with) and tend to act in an autonomous way. In some
cases, these organizations are also ‘adversarial’ vis-a-vis government (Young, 2000)
as they often deal with issues that are politically difficult or salient, or behave in an
activist way (Verschuere et al., 2012). Indeed, civil society actors may be willing to
cooperate with governments to tackle new societal challenges, but they may also
display the opposite reaction and withdraw from the public sphere. Distrust in
political institutions, together with growing anxiety about a declining welfare
state, may trigger a revival of such small-scale social initiatives, outside the
formal sphere of national, organized solidarity. This tendency towards new civil
society patterns ‘from beneath’ is a growing phenomenon in the current welfare
state landscapes, and raises important questions regarding the future of the nation-
state under conditions of ‘glocalization’ (Ritzer, 2000). There are still doubts,
though, about the scale and impact of such initiatives. Will non-institutional and
sub-national social practices re-emerge and develop into a crucial factor in welfare
policy and governance? If so, what does it mean for patterns of national solidarity?
Does ‘localism’ imply social isolationism and thus, indirectly, a decline of public
values like equal social rights?

Problem statement: manufacturing a diverse and changing civil society

This diverse and changing picture of contemporary civil society, which we can only
very briefly outline here, is partly a logical consequence of new approaches to govern-
ance. However, this diverse picture also raises many questions about the new role of
government and the new type of civility that is expected or desired to emerge. Taking
into account the rhetoric of many policymakers, civil society looms large in European
public debates. A large collection of buzzwords accompanies this resurrection of the
civil society discourse: social responsibility, citizenship, Big Society, activation, partici-
pation, horizontalization, to name but a few. A firm belief in civil society as a solution,
as a more effective alternative to welfare state and market arrangements, feeds the
current debate on how to solve pressing social problems. Many policymakers believe
that civil society is the answer to the problems of our time, but how realistic is that?
The empirical picture leaves us with many questions. There is the (at least partial)
decline of traditional civil society and the emergence of new civic initiatives and new
activism, of which the scale and impact is still unclear. Then the question is how such a
fragmented and diverse civil society can deal with complex issues such as unemploy-
ment, social vulnerability or social disintegration.
The answer is as simple as it is puzzling: civil society, in all its diversity, should
be reinvented and given a new position in society. Indeed, we and others have
spoken in terms of ‘manufacturing’ (Brandsen et al., 2014; Hodgson, 2004).
States have started: encouraging citizen participation, co-production and self-orga-
nization; involving civil society organizations in public service delivery; and
encouraging civil engagement and good behaviour in publicity campaigns. It
brings states and civil society into a new kind of relationship, one of which
many will be suspicious.
Brandsen et al. 5

This grand ambition – the manufacturing of a new civil society by the state –
raises numerous issues. In the remainder of this article, we will analyse each of the
two key developments that condition the nature of state–civil society relationships
in our time: shifts in governance paradigms and social liquefaction, respectively.
Based on this analysis, we will reflect on what future civil society may look like, as
it is being shaped by both top-down and bottom-up dynamics.

Developments that condition the nature of contemporary

state–civil society relations
Although some of the issues in the relationship between the state and civil society
are old and even timeless, it is important to locate our discussion on the relation-
ship between civil society and the state in the specific social context where it
originated. Arguably, the discussion over the relationship between the state and
civil society2 is as old as scholarship itself and there is a high risk of overstating the
similarity between present and past debates. For a start, the sharp distinction
between the two concepts presupposed in our present discussion is of relatively
recent origin. Traditionally, civil society and political society were regarded as
more integrated. In the Aristotelian view of politics, participation in civil society
inevitably meant participation in political life and the only alternative was to with-
draw to a secluded existence. There was no public life separate from politics.
The notion of a third domain next to the state and market originated in the pol-
itical philosophy of the 18th century, with an increasing emphasis on its autonomy
– especially from the state (Hall and Trentmann, 2005). Also, the notion
of government is now very different from how it has been perceived during
most of history. It is no overstatement to say that in the past century, the
role of states has changed fundamentally. Despite measures towards re-privatiza-
tion, they are still more dominant in society than they have been at any time in
human history. Although past issues keep recurring, the current conditions of
state–civil society relationships are quite distinct and have given rise to a new
type of debate.
Two different developments weave together here: one is the evolution of gov-
ernance paradigms from a centralist to a more pluralist approach; the other is the
liquefaction of social life, as described by prominent sociologists. Both develop-
ments link to various disciplinary and interdisciplinary traditions; both are more
complex and contradictory than we could here do justice to by any measure. They
come together in a specific way, creating a new dynamic in state–civil society rela-
tions that is specific to our time. Where this dynamic leads to is a question for
empirical research. The effects of efforts to recreate or reshape civil society seem to
hinge on the interfaces between the institutional architecture of modern society
(with a dominant position of the state and quasi-state institutions) and the emer-
ging dynamics of a late-modern network society, with a diverse and heterogeneous
civil society with hybrid relationships with government, as a result of public man-
agement paradigms that have shifted over time (Evers, 2005).
6 International Review of Administrative Sciences 0(0)

From public administration to public governance

The first development is a change in approaches to governance. In traditional
bureaucratic public administration models, it is the state (or the ‘public sphere’)
that has or should have a quasi-monopoly in policymaking and public service
delivery. This approach came simultaneously with the growth of the welfare
state in many countries, characterized by an explosion of government responsibil-
ities in domains like social services, welfare, education, economic policy and so on.
These new governmental responsibilities also led to large state bureaucracies and
increased public budgets.
Previous research has shown that the role civil society plays in the public sphere,
or the impact civil society has, differs strongly between countries (Salamon et al.,
2003; Smith and Grønbjerg, 2006). In corporatist countries like Germany, The
Netherlands or Belgium, many parts of public service delivery have traditionally
been entrusted to civil society (Dekker, 2004; Zimmer, 1999). In other countries,
for example, in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, governmental bureaucracies trad-
itionally deliver these services, and only a ‘small’ civil society in domains like edu-
cation and welfare is observed (Jenei and Kuti, 2007; Wijkström and Zimmer,
2011). This implies that the path-dependent nature of government–civil society
relationships in public service delivery and the underlying paradigm of public
administration should be taken into account.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic growth of the previous decades slowed down,
and the limits of the large and bureaucratic welfare state also became apparent. An
increasing number of observers and policymakers made an argument for another
‘kind of’ government that was smaller and played another societal role. This move-
ment, under the large umbrella of New Public Management (NPM), argued for a
more businesslike governmental machinery, with the introduction of concepts like
performance management and measurement, market-type mechanisms (competi-
tion), and outsourcing (Hood, 1991). Obviously, this movement has also affected
many quasi-governmental organizations, like the civil society organizations that
deliver public services (Bode and Brandsen, 2014). Increasingly, these were expected
to prove performance – efficiency, effectiveness and quality – in return for the gov-
ernmental subsidies that they were working with. In the heartland of NPM, the
Anglo-Saxon world, many NPOs that previously had the quasi-monopoly in social
service delivery and health care now also have to compete with commercial suppliers.
Implicit in this approach is a shift in thinking about civil society organizations in
which their trust-based legitimacy as non-profit-seeking suppliers of common goods
(Hansmann, 2003; Ortmann and Schlesinger, 2003) is no longer taken for granted.
The expectations with which they are confronted – from performance management
and measurement to the introduction of competition in areas that were previously
monopolized by civil society – has inevitably introduced a ‘managerial’ culture in
organizations that were previously dominated by a ‘softer’ culture, for example, in
caring for the vulnerable, educating young people and shaping and promoting the
arts (see, e.g., Eikenberry and Kluver, 2004).
Brandsen et al. 7

The latest stage in thinking about government and the public sector has been
labelled ‘New Public Governance’ (e.g. Osborne, 2006). This paradigm is based on
the assumption that for effective policymaking and service delivery, government
should collaborate in pluralistic networks with many other actors, since complex
social problems can only be dealt with through the combination of various
resources. According to this philosophy, public value can only exist in a co-
production between government, citizens, associations, entrepreneurs and firms.
This approach also implies recognition of the specific nature of the services that
civil society organizations tend to provide.
These developments have radically altered the relationships between the state
and traditional (in some countries, pillarized) service-delivering organizations.
However, and this is new, states also attempt to reach out to a so-called ‘new’
civil society that emerges around relatively new issues in the public debate, such as
the environment, multiculturalism, mobility and public safety. Whereas this rela-
tionship was previously a rather adversarial one in which the new civil society
opposed governmental policy, there is currently a trend towards a more coopera-
tive relationship (Emerson et al., 2011; Hartz-Karp and Meister, 2010; Hendriks,
2010; Pemberton, 2013), an observation that also comes out of the literature on co-
production (Alford, 2014; Verschuere et al., 2012).
This is neither a linear nor homogeneous development. Different manifestations
of this new approach to public governance exist; old and new paradigms exist
alongside one another, and distinctions that are theoretically clear are not so in
practice. However, the general direction of current development is towards a more
pluralist approach that sees a role for civil society not simply as the adversary or
contractor of public policy, but as intrinsic collaborator.

Social liquefaction
This coincides with another development, which is the decline of traditional civil
society. Modernity has entered a permanent state of turbulence, according to the
concepts of influential social theorists, such as Beck’s (1992) ‘risk society’,
Giddens’s (1990) ‘manufactured uncertainty’ and Bauman’s (2000) ‘liquid modern-
ity’. The solid, defined, territorialized and state-bound concept of modern life is
melting down.
This manifests itself in various areas of life. In work and welfare, traditional
social ties (labour relations, community solidarity) become weaker and fragile as
flexible contracting grows in number. The living environment is increasingly an
urban one, with increasing anonymity. The effects of economic individualization,
migration and information technology lead to cultural fragmentation and the
decline of traditional communities. One of the main drivers behind this trend is
economic globalization. Economic interdependencies are more than ever shaped at
the global scale. Yet, the social and cultural consequences of this process highly
differ from place to place, even within the context of a single nation-state. Sassen
(2008) speaks of a ‘global–local’ axis, and Ritzer (2000) of a ‘glocalized’ social
8 International Review of Administrative Sciences 0(0)

space. The implication is that national governments are gradually losing their
powers to regulate and exercise control, fuelling assumptions about the emer-
gence of new types of collaborative governance, as discussed in the previous
paragraph.
Over the past century, it has been common to emphasize the problematic aspects
of social fragmentation: our churches are empty, villages and communities are
disappearing, and our values and bonds are slipping away. This romantic tale
stretches back as far as Tonniës’s (1887) classical distinction between
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, which experienced a revival with Putnam’s (2001)
popular analysis of declining social capital. One of the great issues of contemporary
social science is whether as the old social order is fading, a new one is emerging
and, if so, what it will look like. Yet, in the public discourse on social change, the
image of decline has tended to predominate (whereas in relation to technological
change, there is a tendency towards optimism).
The role of states in relation to such developments has always been contradict-
ory, but at this point in time, the dominant discourse is one of restoration (or
regeneration, reconstruction, revitalization, etc.). Yet, if the ‘national’ is no
longer a source of ‘binding’, socially, culturally and economically, how can we
expect manufacturing strategies to be successful? Baumann (2000) argues that
the romance between nation and state is cooling down and rapidly developing
into a ‘living apart together’ arrangement. This explains why governments are
trying hard to reinvent the civil sphere –for living apart may easily end up in
divorce. However, according to the global–local theorists, this should be seen as
a spasm of death. Not all scholars do adhere to this pessimistic view of the future of
the nation-state (see, e.g., Schinkel, 2012), nevertheless, it posits an intriguing
puzzle: how likely is it that civil society can reinvent itself, from below, in local
contexts that are liquefied and without the help of solid institutional resources?

The complications of regenerating civil society

As a result of these two trends, public authorities are increasingly inclined to define
social relations and responsibilities as something that can be manufactured and
managed. Fear over weakening or changing social relations and the loss of values
are, of course, far from new. They are at the core of 2500-year-old plays and are
presumably as old as man itself, so that is, in itself, hardly historically unique. Nor
is it unusual for states to try to regulate social life and turn society away from
perceived moral degeneration. In that sense, current efforts to revitalize civil society
are a new phase in a continuous process.
There are two respects, though, in which they are historically distinct, if not
unique. First, as noted earlier, the role of the state in society has changed essentially
from where it was even a hundred years ago. Barring some exceptions, it has rarely
been as powerful as it is today. Second, its ambition is not only to co-opt or
integrate, but also to recreate, civil society. To put it provocatively: public govern-
ance in modern welfare states is looking for methods to reinvent (or revitalize)
Brandsen et al. 9

‘the social’. Ambitions include a large-scale reconstruction of local communities,

civil society and citizenship by giving public responsibilities to citizens and
civil society organizations. As a consequence, relationships with citizens, commu-
nities and third sector organizations are cast within the mould of public
management.
This restoration is fraught with complications. For a start, the state is not sep-
arate from society, but part of it, if only because its own mechanisms of control rest
partly on the social relations that are in meltdown. The solid state, intervening in
society with powerful social technologies, is no more. Governance instruments that
rely on authority, hierarchy and bureaucracy increasingly suffer from a lack of
effectiveness and legitimacy. As a consequence, we witness the emergence of new
modes of public governance, aiming at the recovery of solid ground for state inter-
vention. One of the strategies involved in this process is the use of social capital as a
source for public governance. Community initiatives, local social practices and
third sector organizations are appointed a position and function within public
governance. In Flanders (Belgium), for example, with the decree on local social
policy, local governments are expected to engage third sector organizations and
organized civil society in the development and implementation of local social poli-
cies (De Corte and Verschuere, 2014). Waardenburg and Van de Bovenkamp
(2014), in a study on Dutch sports and patient associations, show that such civil
society organizations can be ‘manufactured’ by government as means to implement
public policy. This governmental control of organizations can be achieved through
at least four mechanisms: financially; through accountability procedures; via
demands for partnerships; and via the use of symbolic policy language
(Waardenburg and Van de Bovenkamp, 2014: 89). In other words, the involvement
of civil society cannot, in itself, be seen as a way to give citizens more control. It is
also a manner used by government to steer governmental policies. These two
examples of increased government–civil society cooperation, among many others,
leave us with a paradox, as we noted earlier: if social and cultural erosion is the
problem, how can it be launched as part of the solution?
A second complication is that it is unclear how relations that are inherently built
bottom-up can be constructed with help from the top down. The search for civil
society from above may lead to what Trommel (2009) has described as ‘greedy
governance’, aiming to manufacture a civil sphere by means of public interventions.
This may easily destroy what it wants to promote: a lively, self-governing civil
society. The recreated communities may not be able to exist without government
support. It is an intriguing question whether new forms of ‘civility’ are identical or
even comparable to their classic predecessors. The very fact that states are involved
in shaping civil society organizations, by means of financial instruments, account-
ability procedures, performance management or otherwise, may imply that organ-
izations lose their original identity. Indeed, in the worst cases, efforts to integrate
the state with bottom-up organizations and networks may be an expression of
totalitarianism (Tilly, 2005). Even in cases of weak state intervention, one must
wonder whether ‘civility’ still has the meaning it had before.
10 International Review of Administrative Sciences 0(0)

A third problem is that different paradigms of governance continue to coex-

ist, which sometimes leads to contradictory pressures. NPM also involves civil soci-
ety, but with a narrower focus on performance and management. The risk is
then that government (and society) starts to overemphasize management indicators
to judge civil society organizations, or that civil society organizations are forced
into competition with commercial organizations. Ultimately, this may lead to mis-
sion drift and goal displacement (Eikenberry and Kluver, 2014). In the UK,
Harlock (2014) has shown in the context of elderly care how organizations
from civil society try to negotiate and manage changes in their public service envir-
onment in a condition of high dependence on local officials for funding, and
often struggle to maintain their goals. Verschuere and De Corte (2014) show
that non-profit organizations in the Flemish (Belgian) welfare sector perceive
decreased autonomy (concerning the choice of processes, results and target
groups) vis-a-vis government in cases of large public resource dependence.
Moreover, it can already be observed that the cross-national variety in state–civil
society relationships has diminished as a result of the application of NPM prin-
ciples (Bode, 2006).

Finding a new balance between bottom-up and top-down

initiatives
Our analysis of top-down efforts to reconstruct civil society is not meant to sug-
gest that bottom-up initiatives have been replaced. To the contrary, some
recent studies have shown that in European cities (Evers et al., 2014) and in
Belgian cities (De Rynck and Verschuere, 2014), a lot of initiatives emerge, often
from within society, to address new societal problems. These initiatives are often
very concrete (single-issue), are not always part of established and institutionalized
civil society, and develop various relations with local government: sometimes
adversarial (advocating issues and policies that may not be political priorities),
sometimes complementary to what government does, and sometimes filling in
public service delivery gaps in domains in which government is not active
(Young, 2000). Thus, although the process of social liquefaction has affected clas-
sical communities and types of participation, they are far from gone. There are also
indications of new, emerging kinds of social relationships. In other words, top-
down civil society meets bottom-up. The question is how these two driving forces
relate to one another in practice. This is ultimately a question for empirical
research, but in the literature, one can observe various expectations about how
the relationship will develop.
An optimistic view, often found in the literature on social innovation, would
suggest that they are complementary or even synergetic. Top-down efforts to
restore civil society do not necessarily frustrate bottom-up initiatives. National
policy agendas such as the Big Society in England do promote such initiatives,
but leave a lot of space for agency ‘from beneath’. Food banks, voluntary care asso-
ciations and local safety projects all have in common that they are problem-driven
Brandsen et al. 11

rather than ideologically motivated, that they involve actors with various ‘identi-
ties’, and that they have flexible organizational forms. In conditions of increasing
public austerity, and a flowering ‘glocal’ landscape, a large variety of local social
innovations emerge that shape new civil responsibilities, but in novel ways different
from traditional organizations (Evers et al., 2014). Governments at various levels
have (if only temporarily) supported such initiatives.
Yet, of course, it is also possible that there is friction or even outright
competition over resources between initiatives with different backgrounds.
At the very least, the parties involved will have to fundamentally reconsider
their roles. An interesting example is the German Federal Volunteer Service,
which was created when conscription was abolished in 2011 (Beller and
Haß, 2014). Until then, many young men had refused military service and
instead opted for a year of civilian duty, usually within the non-profit
sector. The effect of the reform was that about 90,000 young men who had
supported the welfare state in a broad range of social and health services
and health institutions, as well as organizations in civil protection and sports,
were suddenly no longer available. As compensation, the government founded a
new volunteer service, which operated next to a similar service organized by
the non-profit sector. It has led to a complicated relationship. Although the state
has adopted a stronger role in volunteering, for the implementation of its policy,
it still depends on voluntary organizations to recruit, motivate and supervise
the volunteers. Although, in the end, this may lead to more effective arrange-
ments, in the short term, it has channelled a lot of energy towards
negotiation and administrative processes, rather than to the core business of the
organizations.
The dynamics between top-down and bottom-up initiatives can, indeed, be com-
plex. Even when spontaneous initiatives are successful and self-sustaining, they
may have a ‘dark side’ that invites public intervention, for instance, when they
are seen as undermining or contradicting institutionalized public values. Another
contemporary example may be the existence of grassroots organizations that
organize soup kitchens for homeless or otherwise vulnerable people, with the
underlying aim of recruiting fighters that can be deployed in the Middle East. A
well-known example is the tension between equality and exclusion. If new civil
society networks are too closed, they may come to resemble ‘gated communities’
that are at odds with public values of open access and equality. In a study on
housing cooperatives, Brandsen and Helderman (2012) noted that the benefits of
lively communities often come at the cost of high barriers against intrusions from
the outside. Other instances of such ‘voluntary failure’ are a lack of resources, a
narrow scope of action with a focus on single issues while ignoring others, a lack of
accountability that leads to a focus on narrow interests while neglecting larger
social needs, or a lack of professional competence (Anheier, 2005; Salamon,
1987). Yet, when state interference to correct for or prevent such dynamics is
too strong, initiatives may not get off the ground at all, and the autonomy of
civil society may be compromised.
12 International Review of Administrative Sciences 0(0)

Towards intermediary communities of public craftsmanship

It can be argued that new concepts and practices emerge that seek to overcome the
distinction between adversarial and collaborative relationships (Young, 2000).
As Hecksher and Adler (2006) have argued for the private sector, new forms of
collaboration can be observed, challenged by conditions of increasing (global
economic) complexity and (informational) uncertainty. Supported by the opportu-
nities of Internet-based interaction, professional workers join in (virtual) commu-
nities that embrace the value of knowledge-sharing, being a vital precondition for
innovation. The collaborations that emerge transgress organizational hierarchies
(in the classic words of Tönnies, Gemeinschaft) and, at the same time, challenge the
logic of markets and politics (Gesellschaft). Rather, it seems a logic capable of
developing ‘togetherness’ both at a distance, in an abstract, anonymous space,
and at the familiar level of a concrete place. A similar argument is plausible for
the public sector (Trommel, 2013). In between the institutional logic of the national
welfare state and the newly emerging social dynamics at local levels, collaborations
develop between actors who have one foot in the ‘old world’ (professionals, man-
agers, civil society organizations, local politicians, interest organizations, etc.) and
the other in improvised social ground (cf. Boutellier, 2013). The overarching value
that binds these actors together might be characterized as a problem-driven search
for ‘public craftsmanship’ (cf. Sennett, 2008). Bannink, Bosselaar and Trommel
(2012) have spoken of ‘crafting communities’, aiming at making sound connections
between the different spheres on which public governance rests. As such, this type
of public collaborative might be regarded as a new social-political vehicle that can
‘ride the global–local axis’, or, in the words of Sassen, a novel assemblage that
better fits the requirements of a post-national world. It is, of course, much too early
to verify this and to identify the characteristics of a new type of civil society. Yet,
we conclude our argument by exploring a little deeper as to what this new social
realm between the state and the citizen may look like.
Increasingly, contemporary social problems have global antecedents and local
manifestations. Crucial developments and critical events in global economic net-
works impact upon employment and migration issues everywhere in the world, but
in a different way in Berlin than in Hamburg or in Munich, or in Amsterdam. This
trend points at two political vacuums, respectively, on a transnational and local
level. While these are the levels on which new public problems develop – from
financial crises to welfare, security and integration issues in neighbourhoods –
the political apparatus of the nation-state seems unable to reach these levels ade-
quately. It can be argued that the lack of ‘community’ at transnational and local
levels underlies this political incapacity. However, one may also theorize that the
new challenges for political action in ‘glocalized’ contexts function as a driver
behind the emergence of new forms of social (and political) community, both at
transnational and local levels (a trend also noted in the policy learning literature;
see Radaelli, 1995; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993). Consider the following
example. The growth of economic interdependencies within global value chains,
Brandsen et al. 13

for instance, through processes of outsourcing and transferring work, brings

together a variety of actors sharing a particular interest in crafting a rudimentary
form of social security (and thus stability) within the value chain. That is,
employers, representatives of international unions, local public authorities, anthro-
pologists and insurance companies may work together in an effort to arrange
transnational welfare transfers (cf. Bannink et al., 2011). At the local level,
one can observe a similar mechanism: actors from different spheres (politics, man-
agement, civil society, professions) are increasingly willing to share their knowledge
and skills for the sake of problem-solving outside the domain of formal political
decision-making. Thus, at both levels – transnational and local – one can observe
community-like activity oriented at developing public policies, though not in for-
malized institutional contexts.
In at least four respects, the emergence of these problem-oriented communities
points at new directions in which civil society may develop. First, ‘affinity to the
public domain’ seems to establish a new motivational complex behind community
development, next to traditional (religious, ideological or cultural) motives.
Second, such communities may share a sense of ‘togetherness’ or even solidarity,
but not necessarily in a durable and/or fixed manner. Over time, communities may
change in terms of members, social ties, scope and problem focus. This flexibility,
enabled and supported by contemporary social technologies, may be referred to as
‘electronic solidarity’ (Trommel, 2013). Third, the focus on public problem-solving
involves a turn to ‘pragmatism’ and practical knowledge. In the pursuit of ideo-
logical motives, trial-and-error approaches and careful crafting seem to replace
blueprint politics and policy solutions. Following Sennett (2008), it may be
argued that the virtues of craftsmanship establish a new common ground for
collective action in which established rules for institutional and/or professional
conduct are linked to innovative social experiments. Among these virtues are mod-
esty, patience, devotion to practical wisdom and knowledge-sharing. Finally, one
could assume that these crafting communities are eventually capable of building
bridges into a post-national political future. Due to the tentative nature of crafting
practices, though, it is hard to tell what this future will look like. The turn to
localism or other forms of socio-economic isolationism and NIMBY (‘not in my
back yard’) behaviour is a risk, but also the resort to mere technocratic policy-
making. However, if crafting communities succeed in organizing spaces in which
social innovators cooperate with representatives of democratic institutions and
professional associations, then they may smartly govern a true renewal of our
socio-political landscapes.
In sum, a new future for civil society seems plausible, though not through spon-
taneous revival and neither as a ‘product’ of institutional manufacturing. Rather, it
seems that a distinct mix of negative drivers (the erosion of national political
institutions; professional inabilities) and positive drivers (the rearrangement of
global–local interdependencies; the rapid growth of information technology net-
works) underlies the emergence of communities that seek to find pragmatic answers
to the public problems of our time. It is impossible to tell whether crafting
14 International Review of Administrative Sciences 0(0)

communities will continue to exist as the means of post-national policymaking in

the longer run. One cannot exclude a gradual growth of new and sustainable gov-
ernance structures in which ‘electronic solidarity’ will be embedded as only one of
the binding mechanisms in society. However, in the short run, crafting commu-
nities are likely to increasingly occupy the political vacuums at the local and trans-
national levels as the vehicles potentially able to connect the institutional
architecture of the ‘modern’ nation-state to the emerging realm of local and trans-
national politics.

Conclusion: implications for the research agenda

In the years to come, civil society revitalization is likely to be a hot issue on
the political and social research agendas. Although we have primarily discussed
the European situation, it is a trend that is also visible in other parts of the world
(for examples in this journal, see Birner and Wittmer, 2006; Rosenbaum, 2006).
This article has argued that two perspectives dominate the current debates
and practices in this area: one drawing on the assumption that revitalization is a
matter of institutional ‘production’; the other revolving around the idea of new
social dynamics, driven by the problems that follow from a novel (‘glocalized’
and ‘post-national’) social order. Both perspectives relate to civil society patterns
that are inherently problematic, at least in their ideal-typical forms. Attempts
to manufacture civil society may easily undermine the very essence of civil self-
organization. On the other hand, embracing every bottom-up initiative as a useful
contribution to public governance practices may yield a degree of ‘localism’ that is
destructive to established public values. The question is where that leads. In a
worst-case scenario, civil society will be ground between a state aiming at reshaping
traditional organizations that have lost inspiration and stability, and a new civil
society emerging in the shape of ‘gated communities’ developing outside the public
sphere.
New research efforts are needed to understand how the complex relationship
between governments and civil society organizations is currently unfolding. What
exactly is the logic of this ambitious ‘manufacturing project’: how does it work,
which (side) effects occur, and what sense does it make in terms of ‘revitalization’?
Furthermore, what is the logic of these new social dynamics: to what extent do they
feed the establishment of isolated communities and a related decline of collective
solidarity, and how do they contribute to public governance? More and better
knowledge on these issues may help public authorities to develop smarter civil
society policies, whereas civil actors may get inspired to innovate their practices
in such a way that they better fit the concerns of public governance agendas.
A challenging research question is whether new socio-political communities are
emerging that connect the institutional traditions of the national and local welfare
systems to newly developing initiatives at the local level. If so, it is an exciting
development that will bring together research agendas in public management,
social policy and civil society research.
Brandsen et al. 15

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial
or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes
1. This article is based on research discussed in more detail in the recent edited volume by
Brandsen, Trommel and Verschuere (2014). We would like to note explicitly that it is not
our intention in this text to advocate any particular normative position with respect to the
phenomenon we are analysing.
2. According to Edwards (2004: viii), civil society can be conceptualized as ‘the forms of
associational life’ (which makes it analytically distinct from states and markets), as the
‘kind of society that should be generated’ (normative), or simply as ‘the public sphere, the
arena for public deliberation, dialogue and the exercise of active citizenship in the pursuit
of the common interest’. In this article, civil society is mainly used as an analytical con-
cept, as one of the major societal spheres, next to government, the market, and the family/
individual.

References
Alford J (2014) The multiple facets of co-production: Building on the work of Elinor
Ostrom. Public Management Review 16(3): 299–316.
Anheier H (2005) Nonprofit Organizations. Theory, Management, Policy. New York:
Routledge.
Bannink DBD, Hoogenboom MJM and Trommel WA (2011) Inter-firm knowledge
management as an integrative mechanism. In: Krings BJ (ed.) Brain Drain or
Brain Gain? Changes of Work in Knowledge-based Societies. Berlin: SIGMA Verlag,
pp. 89–105.
Bannink D, Bosselaar H and Trommel W (2012) Crafting Local Welfare Landscapes. The
Hague: Lemma.
Bauman Z (2000) Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beck U (1992) The Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Beller A and Haß R (2014) New challenges for the cooperation between civil society and the
public sector – the Federal Volunteer Service in Germany. In: Brandsen T, Trommel W
and Verschuere B (eds) Manufactured Civil Society: Practices, Principles and Effects.
London: Palgrave, pp. 116–135.
Birner R and Wittmer H (2006) Better public sector governance through partnership with
the private sector and civil society: The case of Guatemala’s forest administration.
International Review of Administrative Sciences 72: 459–472.
Bode I (2006) Co-governance within networks and the nonprofit–forprofit divide. A cross-
cultural perspective on the evolution of domiciliary elderly care. Public Management
Review 8(4): 551–566.
Bode I and Brandsen T (2014) State–third sector partnerships: A short overview of key
issues in the debate. Public Management Review 16(8): 1055–1066.
Brandsen T and Helderman JK (2012) Conditions for successful co-production in housing.
Voluntas 23(4): 1139–1155.
Brandsen T, Trommel W and Verschuere B (2014) Manufactured civil society: Practices,
principles and effects. London: Palgrave.
16 International Review of Administrative Sciences 0(0)

Brandsen T, Van de Donk W and Putters K (2005) Griffins or chameleons? Hybridity as a

permanent and inevitable characteristic of the third sector. International Journal of Public
Administration 28(9/10): 749–765.
Boutellier H (2013) The Improvising Society: Social Order in a Boundless World. The Hague:
Eleven.
De Corte J and Verschuere B (2014) A typology for the relationship between local govern-
ments and NPO’s in welfare state regimes: The Belgian case revisited. Public Management
Review 16(7): 1011–1029.
Dekker P (2004) The Netherlands: From private initiatives to non-profit hybrids and back?
In: Evers A and Laville J (eds) The Third Sector in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar,
pp. 144–165.
De Rynck F and Verschuere B (2014) Local governance arrangements in Flemish cities:
Actors, roles and relationships. Paper for the EGPA Conference, Speyer, September.
Edwards M (2004) Civil Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Eikenberry A and Kluver J (2004) The marketization of the nonprofit sector: Civil society at
risk? Public Administration Review 64(2): 132–140.
Emerson K, Nabatchi T and Balogh S (2011) An integrative framework for collaborative
governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 22: 1–29.
Evers A (2005) Mixed welfare systems and hybrid organizations: Changes in the governance
and provision of social services. International Journal of Public Administration 28: 737–748.
Evers A, Ewert B and Brandsen T (2014) Social innovations for social cohesion: Transnational
patterns and approaches from 20 European cities. WILCO project. Available at:
www.wilcoproject.eu
Evers A and Laville JL (2004) Defining the third sector in Europe. In: Evers A and Laville
JL (eds) The Third Sector in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Giddens A (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hansmann H (2003) The role of trust in nonprofit enterprise. In: Anheier H and Ben-Ner A
(eds) The Study of Nonprofit Enterprise. Theories and Approaches. New York: Kluwer
Academic, pp. 77–114.
Hall JA and Trentmann F (2005) Contests over civil society: Introductory perspectives. In:
Hall JA and Trentmann F (eds) Civil society: A reader in history, theory and global
politics. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.
Harlock J (2014) Diversity and ambiguity in the English third sector: Responding to con-
tracts and competition in public service delivery. In: Brandsen T, Trommel W and
Verschuere B (eds) Manufactured Civil Society: Practices, Principles and Effects.
London: Palgrave, pp. 34–53.
Hartz-Kamp J and Meister H (2010) Creating resilient cities through empowered, delibera-
tive participation. In: Otto-Zimmermann K (ed.) Resilient Cities: Cities and Adaptation to
Climate Change – Proceedings of the Global Forum 2010. New York: Springer,
pp. 177–188.
Heckscher C and Adler PS (2006) The Firm as a Collaborative Community: Reconstructing
Trust in the Knowledge Economy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hendriks F (2010) Vital Democracy: A Theory of Democracy in Action. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Hodgson L (2004) Manufactured civil society: Counting the cost. Critical Social Policy
24(2): 139.
Hood C (1991) A public management for all seasons? Public Administration 69(Spring):
3–19.
Brandsen et al. 17

Hustinx L, Verschuere B and De Corte J (2014) Organizational hybridity in a

post corporatist welfare mix: The case of the third sector in Belgium. Journal of Social
Policy 43(2): 391–411.
Jenei G and Kuti E (2007) The third sector and civil society. In: Osborne S (ed.) Third Sector
in Europe: Prospects and Challenges. London: Routledge, pp. 9–25.
Ortmann A and Schlesinger M (2003) Trust, repute and the role of nonprofit enterprise.
In: Anheier H and Ben-Ner A (eds) The Study of Nonprofit Enterprise. Theories and
Approaches. New York: Kluwer Academic, pp. 77–114.
Osborne SP (2006) The new public governance. Public Management Review 8(3): 377–387.
Pemberton S (2013) Rethinking urban regeneration? Insights into the future through use of
the strategic-relational approach. In: Diamond J and Liddle J (eds) Looking for
Consensus? Civil Society, Social Movements and Crises for Public Management. Bingley,
UK: Emerald Group Publishing, pp. 45–58.
Pestoff VA (1992) Third sector and co-operative services – an alternative to privatization.
Journal of Consumer Policy 15(1): 21–45.
Putnam R (2001) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. London:
Simon and Schuster.
Radaelli CM (1995) The role of knowledge in the policy process. Journal of European Public
Policy 2: 159–183.
Ritzer G (2000) The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation Into the Changing
Character of Contemporary Social Life. London: Sage.
Rosenbaum A (2006) Cooperative service delivery: The dynamics of public sector–private
sector–civil society collaboration. International Review of Administrative Sciences 72:
43–56.
Sabatier PA and Jenkins-Smith H (1993) Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy
Coalition Framework. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Salamon LM (1987) Of market failure, voluntary failure, and third-party government:
Toward a theory of government–nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state.
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 16: 29–49.
Salamon LM (1995) Partners in Public Service: Government–Nonprofit Relations in the
Modern Welfare State. Baltimore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Salamon LM, Sokolowski SW and List R (2003) Global Civil Society. Bloomfield: Kumarian
Press.
Sassen S (2008) Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Schinkel (2012) De Nieuwe Democratie (The New Democracy). Amsterdam: Bezige Bij.
Sennett R (2008) The Craftsman. London: Allen Lane.
Smith SR and Grönbjerg K (2006) Scope and theory of government–nonprofit relations.
In: Powell W and Steinberg R (eds) The Nonprofit Sector – A Research Handbook,
(2nd edn). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 221–242.
Sokolowski SW (2013) Effects of government support of nonprofit institutions on aggregate
private philanthropy: Evidence from 40 countries. Voluntas 24: 359–381.
Tilly C (2005) Trust and Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tönnies F (1887) Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft: Abhandlung des Communismus und des
Socialismus als empirischer Culturformen. Berlin: Fues.
Trommel WA (2009) Gulzig Bestuur. (Greedy Governance). Inaugural Lecture. The Hague:
Boom/Lemma.
18 International Review of Administrative Sciences 0(0)

Trommel WA (2013) In de Verte Gloort het Lokale (en Transnationale). Beleid en

Maatschappij 40(2): 221–226.
Van de Wijdeven T (2012) Doe-democratie: Over actief burgerschap in stadswijken. Delft:
Eburon.
Verschuere B and De Corte J (2014) The impact of public resource dependence on the
autonomy of NPOs in their strategic decision making. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector
Quarterly 43(2): 293–313.
Verschuere B, Brandsen T and Pestoff V (2012) Co-production: The state of the art in
research and the future agenda. Voluntas 23(4): 1083–1101.
Waardenburg M and Van de Bovenkamp H (2014) Civil society organisations as a govern-
ment steering mechanism: A comparison between sport organisations and patient organ-
isations in the Netherlands. In: Brandsen T, Trommel W and Verschuere B (eds)
Manufactured Civil Society: Practices, Principles and Effects. London: Palgrave,
pp. 70–95.
Wijkström F and Zimmer A (eds) (2011) Nordic Civil Society at the Crossroads:
Transforming the Popular Movement Tradition. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Young DR (2000) Alternative models of government–nonprofit sector relations: Theoretical
and international perspectives. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 29(1): 149–172.
Zimmer A (1999) Corporatism revisited. The legacy of history and the German non-profit-
sector. Voluntas 10(1): 37–49.

Taco Brandsen is Professor of Public Administration at Radboud University

Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His research covers public services, innovation and
the interplay of civil society and the state, including the co-production of citizens in
the delivery of public services. He is editor of the journal Voluntas (2016) and board
member of the research networks EMES, EGPA, IRSPM and the International
Society for Third-Sector Research.

Willem Trommel is Professor of Public Policy and Governance at VU University

Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His research focuses on the reform of public gov-
ernance systems, particularly in the field of local welfare. Trommel is chairing the
Dutch/Flemish division of the European network Espa-net (European Group for
Public Administration).

Bram Verschuere is Professor of Public Management at Ghent University, Belgium.

His research covers the management of public and non-profit organizations, state–
civil society relations and the co-production of public services. He is co-chair of the
EGPA Study Group on Public Governance of Societal Sectors.