Voluntas

DOI 10.1007/s11266-017-9871-z

BOOK REVIEW

David Horton Smith, Robert A. Stebbins, and Jurgen

Grotz (eds.): The Palgrave Handbook of Volunteering,
Civic Participation, and Nonprofit Associations,
Volume 2
Palgrave Macmillan, London and New York, 2016, pp. 1414,
Bibliography, Glossary of Key Concepts and Terms

Beth Oppenheim1

 International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University 2017

The Palgrave Handbook of Volunteering, Civic Participation, and Nonprofit

Associations, Volume 2, is a continuation of comprehensive scholarship on
associations at a global level. Designed and organized as a textbook on introducing
the varied scholarship on associations and their many complexities, the textbook is a
solid contribution to an area in need of further research. Its’ editors are three
prominent scholars and practitioners from ‘‘WEIRD’’ nations (Western, Educated,
Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) who have a vested interest in framing interdis-
ciplinary discourse on associations globally through recruiting and sharing varied
perspectives from many countries worldwide. David Horton Smith, Ph.D., a
sociologist by training, is the founder of the Association for Research on Nonprofit
Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and a career-long advocate of
interdisciplinary research on associations and their role in society. Robert Stebbins,
Ph.D., FRSC, also a sociologist, focuses his work at the nexus of voluntaristics and
leisure studies. Voluntaristics is defined as ‘‘…the organized field of research and
theory on all of the phenomena of the non-profit sector, individual and collective…’’
(Smith 2013, 2016). Jurgen Grotz, Ph.D., is a sinologist who focuses his work on the
relationship between the volunteer sector and the state. These editors, through their
own careers, represent the variance of discipline and focus that makes up the
contributors to this textbook. The editors also dedicate significant space to
describing their process in recruiting academics to participate in the textbook, and it
is this globalist perspective that frames the rest of the text. The contributors
represent 73 countries and a wide variety of academic backgrounds.

Book Review Editor: Marc Jegers.

& Beth Oppenheim

beth.oppenheim@gmail.com
1
University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

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 Voluntas

The textbook is focused primarily on four main subject areas, which tackle:
internal structure of associations; internal processes of associations; external
environments of associations; and finally, the scope and impact of volunteering and
associations overall. There is also a section in the conclusion focused on prospects
for further research. The book’s intention is to provide brief overviews of each
subject area in several geographic locations to demonstrate the ways in which theory
meets practice in interesting ways depending upon the national context. Because it
is designed as a textbook, large subject areas are tackled in relative brief; each
section described above is expanded upon through chapters dedicated to smaller
components of the environment being described. The textbook covers ground both
in the Global North and in the Global South and highlights the need for further data
sets and empirical research in the Global South to better represent how associations
are widely varied globally. This fits in well with what the editors highlight at the
outset: volunteering, the ‘‘third sector,’’ non-profit associations, and their many
iterations around the globe are among the most under researched entities in the
discussion of civic engagement and civil society. Each chapter ends with a section
called ‘‘Usable Knowledge,’’ which helps readers to contextualize the varied
contributions of the chapter. This is important, as students or other researchers using
this text will be eager to synthesize information coming from many different
geographic contexts.
The authors of each chapter reinforce the idea that further research is critical to
enrich our understanding of associations, their roles, and what their existence says
about theory across many academic disciplines. One example of this is the
chapter ‘‘Scope and Trends of Volunteering and Associations,’’ (Smith et al. 2016),
where data explored about volunteering and associations are placed in context to
develop theory around long-term trends in various countries. Here, the authors
demonstrate how the data we have about these trends are relatively limited, but can
be analysed and synthesized by scholars in fields such as sociology to understand
what can explain volunteering ebbs and flows. Comparisons are made between
‘WEIRD’ countries alongside Nordic countries, China, Arab states, and municipal
data in Europe, among others. What makes the analysis of this vast and varied data
effective is that questions and responses dictate the frame of the chapter. This is
helpful for both students and other researchers being introduced to the field for the
first time.
The chapters in this text are rich, but leave the reader with a desire to learn more.
For example, several chapters address issues of civil liberties and political contexts
and their impact on associations or volunteers. This topic in and of itself is complex,
and the chapters introduce potential complexities without addressing each one in
full. This is understandable given the format of the text, and the bibliographies in
each chapter provide scholars with ample opportunity to investigate further. The
editors’ desire to achieve a multidisciplinary and global perspective in this field
comes is achieved well here and motivates further research for students and
advanced researchers alike.

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