Comments on “Social Origins of Civil Society”

Abstract

Lester Salamon and Helmut Anheier's “Social Origins of Civil Society: Explaining the Nonprofit Sector Cross-Nationally” offers a thorough cross-national quantitative analysis of the correlates of nonprofit-sector size, composition, and sources of funding. The first study of its kind, it is remarkable in both its theoretical ambition and empirical scope. Still, this research is plagued by problems that affect almost all research of this type: small numbers, poor measures, vague theories, a preponderance of cross-sectional data, and so on. Suggestions for improving the research include: (1) disaggregating the definition of the nonprofit sector to address criticisms from both the right and the left; (2) adopting a multidimensional approach to assessment of the nonprofit sector, to deal with its great heterogeneity; (3) devoting more attention to possible nonlinear relationships; and (4) casting a wider theoretical net in the effort to build a convincing “social origins” perspective. In the end, Salamon and Anheier may be forced to devote more effort to qualitative analysis of specific sectors to demonstrate the explanatory power of the social origins perspective.