ISTR Sixth International Conference Toronto, Canada / July 11-14, 2004 Contesting Citizenship and Civil Society in a Divided World

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	Abstracts

State building and the development of voluntary action: A comparison of the two jurisdictions in Ireland
by
Arthur Williamson
Centre for Voluntary Action Studies, University of Ulster
Coauthors: Nicholas Acheson

This paper argues that the experience of Ireland’s two jurisdictions illustrates how differences in the way states frame their welfare provision shape voluntary action and hence condition the development of civil society. It suggests that in the European context Ireland presents a particularly interesting case study of divergence and more recent (1990s) convergence. An exploration of the way civil society developed in the two jurisdictions after the partition of the island in 1922 illuminates contemporary debates on the role of states in structuring the civic space in which voluntary action occurs.

The paper is a contribution to the debate between the neo-Tocquevillians (who argue that the social capital generated by particular forms of associational life constitute a fundamental building block of successful democratic states (Putnam, 1993, 2000)) and those who argue that voluntary action is a by-product of political processes of state building (Tarrow, 1996; Edwards and Foley, 1997,1998). Putnam’s introduction of the concept of social capital as a vital ingredient in successful modern democracies was based on an analysis of differences in the development of northern and southern Italy after the unification of the country in the 1860s. In Ireland, the opposite process has occurred. A single administrative unit was split in 1922 into two jurisdictions, each of which for the ensuing 70 years has looked elsewhere for models of economic and social development. If Putnam is right, then we would expect to find that differences in how the two jurisdictions have developed to be grounded in differences in associational life and the extent of social capital thereby generated. However, if Putnam’s critics are right, then differences that are to be found in how voluntary action is structured in the two jurisdictions are much more likely to be the consequence of the process of state and institution building.

The Irish case, we argue, shows that the dispositions, types of networks and institutional arrangements of communities (the forms of bonding and bridging social capital available to them) do matter in the structuring of voluntary action, but they matter much less than the processes of state and institution-building in which they are situated. Before partition a fundamental cleavage in Irish society between catholic and protestant communities was reflected in the development of two parallel church-based worlds of voluntary action in Ireland. This persisted in both jurisdictions for more than half a century after partition. Its impact continued to be felt in the differential experience of communities in responding to the onset of the troubles in the north. But we argue that the main drivers of divergence after partition were different traditions in political philosophy and social administration and very differing approaches by the state to its role of guarantor of citizens’ welfare. The participation of Northern Ireland in the political settlement of the UK welfare state post 1945 fundamentally shaped the development of voluntary action there. Paradoxically, it both preserved, and in the end enhanced, the provision of welfare services by voluntary organizations and (more importantly) provided an arena for the development of new forms of secular voluntary action from the 1970s onwards.

Lacking this context, in the Republic of Ireland relations between voluntary organizations and the state were pragmatic, governed by short-term considerations and informed by a view of the state as a residual provider of welfare which was properly the provenance of the family and voluntary institutions such as the churches. The architects of that state were thus not that interested in welfare as a means of enhancing the state’s legitimacy with its citizens whereas in Northern Ireland, citizens participated in a post-war United Kingdom settlement in which welfare was constructed as one of the chief grounds of the state’s legitimacy.

Evidence of convergence in the voluntary sectors in the two jurisdictions since the early 1990s shows the impact the European Community (after Maastricht, the European Union) has had on discourse about voluntary action and the state evident in both jurisdictions that far exceeds its financial contribution. This during the 1990s has fed into similar processes in both parts of Ireland in which the state is reconfiguring its competencies and relationships with its citizens in the face of the globalization, consumerism and the attendant reconstruction of risk Our evidence shows a pattern of divergence and subsequent recent convergence in the Irish experience that closely follows the broader 20th century story first of nation-building around the welfare state, followed by the more recent hollowing out of the state and the consequent need to renegotiate the social compact between a state and its citizens in an age of globalization.

References Edwards, Bob and Michael W. Foley (1997) “Social Capital and the Political Economy of our Discontent”. American Behavioral Scientist 40: 669-78 Edwards, Bob and Michael W. Foley (1998) “Civil Society and Social Capital beyond Putnam” American Behavioral Scientist 42, 1: 124-39.

Putnam, Robert, D. (with R. Leonardi and R. Nanetti) (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press.

Putnam, Robert, D (2000) Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, Simon and Schuster.

Tarrow, Sidney (1996) “Making Social Science Work across Time and Space: A Critical Reflection on Robert Putman’s Making Democracy Work,” American Political Science Review, 90: 389-97

Date received: September 25, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # camk-08.