Civil Society’s Democratic Potential: Organizational Trade-Offs Between Participation and Representation

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In Civil Society’s Democratic Potential, Nicole Bolleyer explores 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. Constituting the organizational fabric between government and society, these organizations encompass a wide diversity of entities thought to fundamentally contribute to both democratic participation and representation. However, CSOs’ readiness and ability to serve as venues for participation, vehicles of democratic representation, or indeed both at the same time, are increasingly questioned in political science, sociology, and voluntary sector research alike.

Bringing those fields together, the author argues that two contrasting organizational templates - the ’voluntary association’ and the ’professionalized voluntary organization’ - allow theorizing fundamental trade-offs shaping CSOs’ ’performance’ on three dimensions accounting for their varying democratic contributions: participation, representation, and societal responsiveness. The study’s innovative theoretical framework is examined using a mixed-methods design. The latter combines the analysis of survey data covering over 3000 CSOs across four European democracies with qualitative case studies of the evolution of three CSOs - a political party, an interest group, and a service-orientated organization - over several decades.

Nicole Bolleyer, Chair of Comparative Political Science, LMU Munich

Nicole Bolleyer is Chair of Comparative Political Science at LMU Munich (Germany). She is the author of several monographs including New Parties in Old Party Systems: Patterns of Persistence and Decline in Seventeen Democracies (Oxford University Press, 2013) and The State and Civil Society: Regulating Interest Groups, Parties and Public Benefit Organizations in Contemporary Democracies (Oxford University Press, 2018). Her research has appeared in a wide range of leading journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, Social Forces, and the European Journal of Political Research.