Civil Society’s Democratic Potential

Overview & Synopsis

Which civil society organizations (CSOs) contribute to democracy, how, and why? Organized civil society including interest groups, political parties, and service-oriented associations is traditionally considered a cornerstone of democracy. Their potential to contribute to democracy is more often than not treated as a given. Nevertheless, individual CSOs’ readiness and ability to serve as venues for participation, vehicles of democratic representation, or indeed both at the same time have remained a matter of ongoing debate across different social science disciplines. Prominent notions such as ‘NGOization’ and ‘cartelization’ have problematized CSOs’ and parties’ increasing state dependency, professionalization, and bureaucratization, shifting organizational priorities away from societal values towards instrumentally driven self-maintenance, supposedly diminishing their contribution to democratic governance. This study argues that two contrasting governance templates—the ‘voluntary association’ and the ‘professionalized voluntary organization’—allow theorizing fundamental trade-offs shaping CSOs’ ability to simultaneously ‘perform’ on three dimensions central to their democratic contributions: participation, representation, and societal responsiveness. The study’s theoretical framework is examined through a mixed-methods design that combines the analysis of survey data across four European democracies (Germany, Norway, Switzerland, UK) with qualitative case studies of individual organizations’ long-term trajectories over several decades.