LEISURE AND CIVIL SOCIETY

The concept of civil society refers to social affiliations located between the state, on one hand, and individuals, families, and other loosely structured collectives, such as neighborhoods, on the other. Individuals affiliate with a variety of such interstitial organizations voluntarily in order to protect or further shared interests and values within the larger society. Religious institutions, professional associations, associations based on sport, leisure, and recreation, various nongovernment organizations (NGOs), and a variety of advocacy groups are examples of these affiliations.

The roots of civil society can be traced most directly to the reforms of Pericles (c. 490–429 b.c.), statesman of Athens, who consolidated Ephialtes's (d. 461 b.c.) goal of providing citizens with active roles in government. This development in Athenian democracy was based on the even earlier reforms of Solon (c. 630–590 b.c.) and others. Pericles also increased the aesthetic awareness of common folk in Athens by making drama and music accessible, but his major innovation was the introduction of payment for state service by citizens from the public treasury.

During the late 1900s, there was a renewed interest in the construction and organization of civil society. Indeed, public discourse about civil society had become globalized. For example, Internet searches of the key word "civil society" were likely to produce such matching sites as Committee of Government Representatives on the Participation of Civil Society, Voices from Serbian Civil Society, Middle East Civil Society Working Group, Philosophy and Civil Society, Postmodern Civic Culture, CIVITAS: The Institute for the Study of Civil Society, and CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation.

Another indication of the globalization of discourse about civil society is the fact that the United Nations has its own civil society Web site (http://www.un.org/partners.civil_society/home.html) showing how the organization works with NGOs and other civil society agencies on issues of global concern. These examples of the globalization of public discourse about civil society support Don Eberly's assertion: "The most important development at the dawn of the twenty-first century may be the rediscovery of the nongovernmental sector of society, or as some call it the voluntary or social sector" (p. 3).

The Origins of Civil Society

The classical understanding of civil society derives from political thought associated with early Hellenic city-states. Aristotle, Pericles, and Plato all had something to say about civil society, and their written works reflect the first efforts to develop systematic political theory. With the fall of the Roman Empire, classical conceptions of civil society were discarded for Christian conceptions of civil society, as perhaps best revealed in the writings of St. Augustine. In turn, Christian conceptions of civil society greatly influenced the first modern notions of civil society associated with the writings of the moral philosophers of the Scottish enlightenment, including those of David Hume, John Locke, Adam Smith, and Adam Ferguson, who published An Essay on the History of Civil Society in 1767.

What Is Civil Society?

Given the many different historical periods in which civil society has been examined, the diverse cultural contexts in which civil society has been established, and the difficulties of translating a largely Western concept into Asian languages, it is not surprising that there is no consensus as to what civil society is. However, a number of working definitions provide a reasonable description of the basic features of civil society.

Joan Cohen and Andrew Arato define civil society "as a sphere of social interaction between economy and state, composed above all of the intimate sphere (especially the family), the sphere of associations (especially voluntary associations), social movements, and forms of public communication" (p. ix). In a slightly different vein, Janet Harris states: "Civil society refers broadly to processes of collective decision-making and action that entail (a) active, uncoerced involvement; (b) trust of one's fellow citizens; (c) responsibility and care for the well-being of others; and (d) social networks featuring many horizontal relationships—interactions among people with relatively equal status and power" (p. 138). These two sets of working definitions in combination reinforce Jamie Swift's observation: "Civil society hints at voluntarism, charity, community organizing, grassroots activity" (p. 5).

The Appeal of Civil Society

The concept of civil society is appealing for political, popular, and professional reasons. From a political perspective, proponents of the idea of civil society can be found among communitarians, libertarians, and traditionalists. In short, the idea of civil society holds appeal for political theorists and politicians positioned left, right, and center on the political spectrum.

All political theorists and politicians recognize, in Anthony Giddens's terms, that: "The democratizing of democracy . . . depends upon the fostering of a strong civic culture" (p. 77); and that: "Civil society is the arena in which democratic attitudes, including tolerance, have to be developed" (p. 78). Giddens links the global with the local in his notion of democratizing democracy. On the one hand, he recognizes that democracy must be transnational (p. 75); while, on the other hand, he recognizes that "the democratization of democracy will take different forms in different countries, depending on their background" (p. 76). Moreover, he acknowledges that even the most mature democracies can become more democratized.

Laypeople are also attracted to the idea of a civil society. As Swift notes, people often believe that "they are merely passive spectators at a global game dominated by powerful international corporations," and thus "the idea of a civil society, the proverbial dense network of associations and small groups in which people actually do something effective, is attractive" (p. 88).

Last but not least, the concept of civil society appeals to professional educators, social workers, and social scientists, because they commonly address such key questions as: "By what process does the individual acquire democratic habits, skills and values; and how is moral conscience, so vital for a civil and human society formed?" (Eberly, p. 15). The idea of civil society is most appealing to sociologists. Indeed, several famous theorists in the sociological tradition have made substantial contributions to debates about the civil society, including Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Ferdinand Toennies, Alexis de Tocqueville, Antonio Gramsci, Jurgen Habermas, and Talcott Parsons.

The most direct and substantial contributions to the scholarly discourse about civil society have been by such contemporary humanistic sociologists as Robert Bellah, Peter Berger, Amitai Etzioni, and Robert Nisbet. The theory and research of these sociologists indicate the main attributes and dimensions of a strong and healthy civil society.

The Attributes and Dimensions of a Strong and Healthy Civil Society

There appears to be consensus among theorists of civil society that the most distinguishable feature of a viable civil society "is a well-informed and active citizenry participating in public life through associations they voluntarily form" (Naidoo and Tandon, p. 7). In turn, voluntary association and associative autonomy require an enabling environment, that is, legally guaranteed and enforced rights to freely act independently of the state and marketplace.

Enabling environments for voluntary association and associational autonomy are provided by what Peter Berger and Richard Neuhaus call "mediating structures." These structures are composed of secondary or communal institutions such as the church, family, and neighborhood that stand between individuals in their private lives and their primary institutions of public life related to the state and marketplace. With respect to the theme of "democratizing democracy," Berger and Neuhaus state three relevant propositions. First, "public policy should protect and foster mediating structures" (p. 161). Second, "mediating structures are essential for a vital democratic society" (pp. 162–163). Third, "wherever possible, public policy should utilize mediating structures for the realization of social purposes" (p. 163).

Relative to big government (the state) and big business (the marketplace), communal institutions, or mediating structures, have three major distinguishing features. First, their characteristics include voluntary membership, uncoerced civic engagement, acts of altruistic responsibility, and networks of horizontal relationships ensuring mutual interactions in terms of relatively equal power and status. The greater the density and diversity of networks of voluntary associations, the greater the degree of institutional pluralism that is important for democratizing democracy. It gives citizens greater choices of activities as well as more channels to express their interests in public life. It also "provides citizens with overlapping membership based on their varied interests, and, thus, cuts across a range of societal cleavages (e.g., race, class, ethnicity, region) that have tended to divide rather than unite people" (Naidoo and Tandon, p. 10).

Second, interactions among members of communal institutions are largely based on the classic "gift mode of exchange." As famously formulated by Marcel Mauss, individuals are morally obligated to give, to receive, and to repay. With reference to mediating structures, Jacques Godbout, in his modern account of The World of the Gift, contends "that families would disintegrate instantly if disavowing the demands of gift and counter-gift," and asserts that "the same holds true for friendship, comradeship, and neighbourliness" (p. 12). In short, the gift mode of social exchange fosters the nurturing and nourishing of intimate social relationships within the relatively private spheres of mediating structures.

Third, relative to primary institutions representative of the state and marketplace, the communal institutions and networks of voluntary associations constituting civil society are most responsible for promoting civic virtue and generating what Robert Putnam and others have referred to as "social capital," that is, the "connections among individuals—social net works and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them" (Putman, p. 19).

More specifically, there are, according to Putman, two specific kinds of social capital called "bridging" and "bonding," respectively. Bridging social capital is "inclusive," whereas bonding social capital is "exclusive." In short, "bridging social capital can generate broader identities and reciprocity, whereas bonding social capital bolsters our narrower selves" (p. 23).

An example of bonding social capital is elite country clubs such as the Augusta National Golf Club, where the professional Masters golf tournament is played annually. Bonding social capital is often associated with "the dark side of civil society," in that "by creating strong in-group loyalty, may also create strong out-group antagonism" (p. 23). But Putman takes care to point out that social organizations cannot be neatly classified as representative of bonding or bridging social capital formations. Using the church as an example, one can note the importance of local churches with African American members for furthering civil rights in the United States during the 1960s, while also noting the detrimental social consequences of strict fundamentalism associated with particular religious sects.

Positive Potentials of Civil Society and Social Capital

Voluntary association and the generation of social capital underpinning the foundations of civil society indicate that first and foremost "civil society represents a search for life on a more humane scale" (Eberly, p. 17). A review of related research literature offers three broad sets of generalizations regarding the positive potentials of civil society in terms of voluntary association, leisure participation, and the generation of social capital that aid in the creation of life on a more humane scale.

First, there is ample empirical evidence supporting the fact that civic engagement and the generation of social capital does in fact enhance the quality of life for participatory citizens. As Janet Harris reports: "Data from hundreds of studies in many different academic disciplines indicate that civically engaged communities have more success in education, health, government, economics, and programs addressing crime, drug abuse, and urban poverty" (p. 139). There are many mechanisms related to these positive effects. But with respect to social capital per se, Robert Putman highlights the following five features: (a) "social capital allows citizens to resolve collective problems more easily;" (b) "social capital greases the wheels that allow communities to advance smoothly;" (c) "social capital improves our lot . . . by widening our awareness of the many ways in which our fates are linked;" (d) "the networks that constitute social capital serve as conduits for the flow of helpful information that facilitates achieving our goals;" and (e) "social capital also operates through psychological and biological processes to improve individual lives" (pp. 288–289).

Second, given the significance of leisure and recreation in communities throughout the world, a case can be made that voluntary sport clubs and recreational activities are an essential feature of the communal order of civil society. Recreational sports and mass participation in all forms of physical recreation increase social capital and help to enhance the quality of life for those civically engaged. North American studies provide consistent findings that participation in leisure activities offer benefits in such areas as academic achievement, development of citizenship, fostering leadership skills, and maintaining lifelong health.

Third, relative to the public, primary institutions of the state and the marketplace, secondary or communal institutions have historically been private and often the central domain of women. Moreover, they have traditionally been the most concerned with the disadvantaged, disabled, oppressed, marginalized, and poor members of society. Thus, in a reciprocal fashion, the mediating structures of civil society have the potential to provide enabling leisure and sport environments endorsing an ethic of inclusiveness and diversity.

Leisure Participation, Voluntarism, and Social Action

Civic engagement and social action are at the core of civil society. In turn, volunteering is at the heart of social action in society in general, and leisure in particular. From a societal perspective, forces of voluntarism have been effective in social movements for positive changes related to indigenous cultures, grassroots democracy in peasant societies, trade union efforts at national political change, and women's liberation efforts worldwide. A notable example of global voluntarism focused on improving the local is the past and present worldwide efforts of the American Peace Corps. Founded under the Kennedy administration in 1961, the Peace Corps remains one of the world's preeminent volunteer associations. Since its inception, more than 168,000 people have joined to serve in 136 countries.

From a leisure perspective, volunteer efforts worldwide are associated with both representational and recreational sport. Major marathons throughout the world, "grand slam" events in professional golf and tennis, international student games, and even the Olympic Games themselves are dependent upon the volunteer efforts of thousands of individuals. As a result, the number of volunteers in the civil sector serving as coaches, organizers, medical advisers, and sponsors are in the millions worldwide.

Given the global nature of voluntarism, it is significant that the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2001 as the International Year of Volunteers. But is it also significant that the notions of voluntary association and voluntarism are especially American. As Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed in his tour of America in 1833: "Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations" (p. 198).

The collective values of Americans observed by de Tocqueville almost surely reflected, in part, the agricultural foundation of early America. In particular, agricultural fairs, derived from European ancestors that date to ancient Greek and Roman times, contributed to early American public welfare through the exposition of new farming practices imported from Europe by major landholders, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Randolph. Large landholders led early agricultural societies in America, and these groups often resembled academic societies, with member reading learned papers at meetings. While such societies held little interest for the great majority of farmers, their gradual democratization and expansion encouraged the participation of working farmers. Early agricultural fairs involved livestock and produce exhibitions and competitions, but, more important, they provided demonstrations of the latest in agricultural techniques.

Agricultural societies spread from New England to the southern United States and the Midwest in the early part of the nineteenth century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, although interrupted by the Civil War, both the federal and state governments in the United States fostered the redevelopment of agricultural societies due to the need for food in the growing cities but also because of the great potential for the export of agricultural products to international markets. The Grange, so named in 1867 from the Latin granea, meaning granary or barn, continued to organize agricultural fairs across America as of 2004. The popularity of agricultural fairs waxed and waned over time, but modern fairs became more family-oriented and involved larger numbers of urban dwellers.

Examples of contemporary voluntarism as the American way are reflected in such national voluntary organizations as Volunteers of America founded in 1896, the AmeriCorps, the Senior Corps, and the U.S.A. Freedom Corps established in 2002. To encourage the recognition of volunteer service and civic participation, President George W. Bush created by executive order in January 2003 the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation.

While voluntarism shares the idea of freedom of choice with the concept of leisure, some newer forms make the connection direct and explicit. The "volunteer vacation," for example, is a relatively recent and interesting form of voluntarism that "links science, conservation, and public involvement" (Schueller, p. 1; see also McMillon, Cutchins, and Gissinger). Examples of Audubon Volunteer Vacations include assisting in the study of the Amazon River dolphin, surveying life-forms on the coral reefs of Fiji, recording chimpanzee behavior in Uganda, helping wetland conservation in Hong Kong, and monitoring whales off the coast of Maui. Numerous other groups in the United States sponsor volunteer vacations, as well. Amizade, a global volunteer association with headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, offers programs that involve community service along with educational opportunities and recreational activities in many areas of both the United States and the rest of the world. The initial goal of Amizade, named after the Portuguese word for "friendship," was to help the peoples of Amazonia save the rain forest. It has since expanded to provide volunteer service vacations in areas such as Nepal, Australia, the Navajo Nation, and the Greater Yellowstone region in Wyoming and Montana. Volunteer vacations are offered by numerous other organizations, including the American Hiking Society (which assists with footpath and shelter construction and rebuilding, often in conjunction with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management), Cross-Cultural Solutions, Earthwatch Institute, Habitat for Humanity, the Sierra Club, and the Student Conservation Association. Volunteer vacations range in price from lows of $80 for American Hiking Society trips to several thousands of dollars for events such as those associated with the Jane Goodall Institute in Uganda. These fees generally do not include travel expenses to vacation sites, but, in many cases, part of vacation fees is used to support research and conservation efforts.

The degree and kind of volunteering in the United States is clearly revealed in a report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in December 2002. Drawing upon a survey of Americans over the age of sixteen for the period from September 2001 to September 2002, about 59 million people, or more than one in four Americans, did some volunteer work during that twelve-month period. The degree of volunteering varied by communal institution, with the majority of volunteers involved with religious organizations (33.9 percent) or youth-development agencies (27.2 percent). Another 12.1 percent performed volunteer work for community or social-service organizations, and 8.6 percent voluntarily worked in hospitals or other health organizations. On average, volunteers spent a median of 52 hours doing volunteer activities, but more than 28 percent reported spending 100 to 499 hours doing volunteer work. A variety of volunteer activities were reported, but teaching or coaching accounted for 24.4 percent of volunteer work. In sum, volunteer activities are a major type of leisure pursuit and involve a substantial number of American citizens.

Private Lives and Public Life

As a socially significant American phenomenon, voluntarism is often viewed in idealistic or nostalgic terms like apple pie and motherhood. But the forces of voluntarism and the generation of social capital are fraught with many private problems and public issues, only a few of which are outlined below.

Qualified personnel Social organizations that are dependent upon volunteers often cannot afford to be too selective. Yet volunteer effort is only as good as the quality that goes into it. For example, with respect to the area of leisure participation, millions of American children participate in sport programs coached by more than 2.5 million volunteers, 90 percent of whom lack any formal training or preparation for their coaching roles (Poinsett).

Hybrid and hyphenated social identities Related to the issue of recruiting qualified volunteers for varied activities and organizations is ensuring that volunteers are qualified to work with diverse cultural groups. In particular, volunteers must be capable of dealing with individuals having hyphenated social identities resulting from marked increases in the process of hybridization or hybridity in American society. For example, "during the 1980s, more immigrants came to America than any other decade in [its] history" (Wishard, p. 66). From 1980 to 1990, the number of Spanish speakers increased by 50 percent, Chinese speakers by 98 percent, and Korean speakers by 127 percent (Wallraff, p. 54).

More significant is the fact that "when today's babies enter their retirement years, white, Anglo-Saxon Americans will be a minority, while Asian-Americans, African-Americans, and Hispanic-Americans will be the majority" (Wishard, p. 66). Thus, as America emerges as a fully blown multicultural society, hybrid and hyphenated identities will become the norm and will greatly impact upon civil society in terms of civic engagement and mass participation in leisure activities.

A key question is, what impact does recent immigration and hybridization have on the generation of social capital and the democratization of democracy? The immediate answer seems to be that there is both good news and bad news. The good news is that in terms of bridging social capital, immigrants are adding a new spirit and vitality to civic society and helping to restore major cities and urban centers. The bad news is that in terms of bonding social capital, immigrants often reside in ethnic/religious ghettos.

Inequality in social capital Research reveals that, in general, members of minority groups—be they based on gender, race, or ethnicity—typically possess less social capital. Nan Lin suggests that principles of structural differentiation and homophily largely account for inequalities in social capital. The first principle proposes social groups differentially occupy socioeconomic positions in society, and, as a result of historical developments and institutional constraints, selected groups are disadvantaged in having unequal opportunities to acquire social capital. The second principle proposes a general tendency for "birds of a feather to flock together," that is, "a general tendency for individuals to interact and share sentiment with others with similar characteristics" (p. 787). Thus "members of a certain group, clustering around relatively inferior socioeconomic standings and interacting with others in similar social groupings, would be embedded in social networks poorer in resources as well—poorer in social capital" (p. 787).

Although Americans typically accept inequality of outcomes, be it wealth or social capital, they should not have to accept inequality of opportunity. Voluntary associations, especially those related to leisure and recreational participation, have the potential to reduce inequality of opportunity by removing structural social constraints and offering systems of social networking that cut across class, ethnic, gender, and racial lines. However, notwithstanding the potential of secondary institutions of civic society to reduce the disadvantages bestowed by the primary institutions of the state and marketplace, recent research suggests that there are emerging trends of social decapitalization.

Social decapitalization In a provocative article titled "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Robert Putman documents trends of what he calls social decapitalization in the United States. And in a recent book, also titled Bowling Alone, he examines patterns of civic, political, and religious participation as well as informal connections and connections in the workplace for evidence to support his thesis of declining social capital in American society. The supposed stimulus for his analysis of social decapitalization was his finding that although more Americans are bowling today than ever before, "bowling in organized leagues has plummeted in the last decade or so" ("Bowling Alone," p. 70).

Putman's thesis generated a fair amount of critical reaction. A number of social scientists, for example, disagree that social capital is in fact declining, some suggesting that social capital has not so much declined but changed to conform to new structural conditions and new forms of civic engagement. However, whatever the merits of the arguments pro and con for American society in general, it is worthwhile to seriously consider Putman's specific contention: "There is reason to believe that deep-seated technological trends are radically 'privatizing' or 'individualizing' our use of leisure time and thus disrupting many opportunities for social-capital formation" ("Bowling Alone," p. 75). Certainly the technological transformation of leisure by television, computers, video games, and other electronic technology may be generating a gap between individual and collective interests within the voluntary sector of society.

Problems of social control and service delivery National crises often bring out the best in people. And certainly there are highly notable cases of volunteering across age, class, ethnic, gender, and racial lines associated with responses to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. Volunteering as a form of national service has become a major theme of the Bush administration as evidenced by the president's creation of the USA Freedom Corps and call for Americans to volunteer for civil defense efforts in a variety of capacities. But national calls for volunteering have the inherent risk of being ideological, paternalistic, and moralistic in nature.

Organizational issues Traditionally, the day-to-day operations of voluntary leisure organizations have been handled in ways ranging from group consensus to volunteer boards of directors. In more recent years, authority structures have become more businesslike, sometimes with day-to-day operations operated by professional staff. However, efforts to change authority structures have sometimes met with resistance. Because such organizations have traditionally valued autonomy from government, self-help, informal operations, and control of decision making by volunteers, adopting a business model has been difficult for many organization as it conflicts with traditional voluntary culture. One problem that confronts voluntary leisure organizations is the need for funding. Since, in recent years, such groups have increasingly solicited corporate as well as government support, more rational organizing principles are needed. In this process, some volunteers have seen their roles marginalized.

Ideally, acts of volunteering should come from "a pro-active model of behavior borne out of the experience of empowerment, rather than a reactive model resulting from the notion of service delivery" (Bell, p. 27). Again, ideally, within the communal institutions of civil society, leisure organizations and recreational agencies provide the best social environments for pro-active models of volunteer behavior.

See also: Civic Clubs, Men; Civic Clubs, Women

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John W. Loy and Garry Chick