Modernizing Democracy

This collection of scholarly contributions looks at how associations and the act of associating function in today's societies. Researchers have described organizations and associations as the middle layer of social life and as core building blocks of democracy. They deliver many welfare services and act as a bridge between private individuals and the political sphere.

The surrounding conditions for associations have shifted considerably in recent decades. Individualization, commercialization and globalization put pressure on both democratic institutions and associations' ability to carry out the roles that social scientists assign them. The book asks whether belonging to an organization or association is becoming an obsolete model, and whether associations can still help modernize society or have instead become leftovers of a post-democratic order.

The chapters are grouped under three headings: studying associations and associating in the twenty-first century, associating in an era of post-democracy, and associations and the challenges of capitalist development. The volume is aimed at third sector researchers as well as political scientists, sociologists, economists, legal scholars and others working in related fields.