From Corporatist Security to Civil Society Creativity: The Nonprofit Sector in Austria

Abstract

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) play an important role in Austrian society and in the economy. Nonetheless, nonprofit sector research in this country — and in continental Europe in general — is a relatively new academic discipline (Badelt, 2002a).1 This is contrary to many Anglo-American countries, where — based on the work of de Tocqueville (Tocqueville, 1978) — communitarian concepts like Etzioni’s have a long tradition (Etzioni, 1973). There, NPOs were mainly established to compete with for-profit organizations, and — in the context of neo-liberal movements — were analyzed in terms of this competition. In Europe, NPOs were rather viewed in reference to the development of the welfare state, and thus with regard to their relationship to the state. Indeed, many NPOs in Austria were and are highly entangled with the public sector. The theoretical interest was therefore based on questions of the legitimacy of private NPOs that fulfilled public agendas and on potential dangers with regard to the sovereignty of the state (Seibel, 1992: 34). However, alongside the crisis of the welfare state in the 1980s, the role of the nonprofit sector in continental Europe has changed, and NPOs are faced with high expectations. Governments have begun to reduce their budget deficits, and NPOs have been expected to alleviate public expenditure cuts by expanding their service provision.KeywordsCivil SocietyNonprofit OrganizationNonprofit SectorSport ClubLegal FormThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.