Studies of comparative civil society tell a consistent story about volunteer participation in advanced democracies: the United States is always at or near the top of the pack, Japan trails in the rear, and European countries such as Britain and France occupy the space in the middle. This is true whether the studies examine participation using survey data, such as the World Values Surveys, or whether they consider organizational size and participation levels in nonprofit organizations, such as the Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. If these studies are accurate – that Americans belong to “a nation of joiners” (Schlesinger 1944) and Japanese do not – then why does Japan have more than twice as many volunteer firefighters and more than four times as many parent-teacher association (PTA) members as the United States?

This chapter argues that current studies of comparative civil society have been systematically biased in favor of the types of participation found commonly in the United States and against those commonly found in Japan. In particular, studies have not picked up participation in organizations with close, embedded relationships with the government such as PTAs or neighborhood associations that are prevalent in Japan. Because Japan is not the only country where this kind of underrepresented participation is prevalent – people in Spain and Germany volunteer in patterns similar to Japanese – new conceptualizations of civil society are necessary in order to understand participation patterns around the world.

The previous chapter has illustrated that current studies may be able to explain why certain types of individuals volunteer at different rates but are inadequate for explaining why similar communities volunteer at different rates. In order to develop a better explanation of variation in volunteer participation at the community level, this chapter seeks to illuminate the factors that generate high rates of volunteer participation in some communities and lower rates in others. In the following pages, I closely examine volunteer participation in the delivery of two services, firefighting and eldercare, in which both volunteers as well as paid city employees provide services. I gathered documentation and talked with city officials and volunteers in Kashihara, Sakata, and Sanda, three medium-size cities in Japan.

The cities were selected as “most similar” cities – they all have populations of approximately the same size – but they also had experienced very different growth rates in their numbers of volunteer firefighters (the only volunteer organization for which I could obtain municipal-level data prior to fieldwork in the city) in the past ten years. Sanda experienced the largest population increase among cities with populations of approximately 100,000 people (it doubled between 1989 and 1999), but at the same time the numbers of its volunteer firefighters remained constant. Kashihara and Sakata had stable populations throughout the ten-year period, but among cities whose populations were approximately 100,000 in 2000, Sakata experienced the largest decrease in its number of volunteer firefighters (–31 percent), while Kashihara had the largest growth rate (+79 percent).

This chapter tests the Community Volunteerism Model developed in Chapter 5 through the study of four countries – Finland, Japan, Turkey, and the United States – that the model predicts should have very different volunteer patterns. The Community Volunteerism Model does a good job of predicting both the types of participation found in each of these countries as well as the rate of participation. Furthermore, the model highlights important ways in which the practices of the four countries reinforce (or undermine) the ideas of individual and governmental responsibility, thereby affecting the types of organizations that are supported and the rates of participation over time. This chapter highlights how the practices that were important in determining volunteer participation at the local community level (as seen in Chapters 4 and 5 in the three Japanese cities) are also influencing volunteer participation at the national level.

The first section in the chapter explains why these four countries were chosen and outlines the pattern of participation predicted by the Community Volunteerism Model. The second section examines each of the four countries in detail, testing the model to see if the ideas of individual and governmental responsibility and the practices of societal and governmental institutions interact to produce the predicted patterns of volunteer participation in each country. The third section returns to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the model as revealed by this test.

FOUR DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF VOLUNTEER PARTICIPATION

Community patterns of volunteer participation can vary by type and by rate.

Why do some places have much more participation in organizations that have close, embedded relationships with the government, whereas other places that may have equally high participation rates favor organizations with more distant relationships with the government? Further, why do some communities, even when compared to similarly situated communities in the same country, have much higher rates of volunteering? To address these two questions, this chapter develops a theory of volunteer participation that explains both the types of volunteer participation as well as the rates of participation found in a community.

The theory, in a nutshell, posits that volunteer participation in a community is a function of that community's norms of civic responsibility. Such norms are formed by the ideas that citizens have of governmental and individual responsibility for dealing with social problems and the practices of governmental and social institutions that support or inhibit volunteer organizations. The ideas citizens have of governmental and individual responsibility inform the content of a community's norms of civic responsibility, suggesting which types of organizations are prevalent in a community. The practices of governmental and social institutions affect the strength of those norms, thereby influencing community participation rates.

My theory of volunteer participation departs from other theories explaining volunteer participation in three fundamental ways. First, in utilizing a state-in-society approach I assume that both society and the state are integral to the development of civil society and civic participation; I specify the ways that each side interacts with the other to encourage or discourage volunteer participation.

On a warm sunny day in May, I was drawn out into the neighborhood streets by the sound of deep Taiko drumbeats followed by resounding cheers. As I followed the stream of people walking around the corner, I witnessed a hugely ornate mikoshi (portable shrine) making its way down my street – led by several dozen cheering people ranging in age from six weeks to eighty years. Half a dozen happi-coat clad youths were perched atop the large four-wheeled mikoshi, beating the Taiko drums, ringing bells, and chanting a call-and-response with those on the ground. I joined the spectators on the sidewalk for a while and smiled as the procession made its way through the small back streets of my community. Just as the small crowd on the roadside dispersed for people to continue with their weekend chores, resonant drumming could be heard again in the distance. Within ten minutes, another, equally ornate mikoshi could be seen rounding the corner a few blocks away, coming toward me. All day long the dozen or so mikoshi for the different shrines serving the community made their way through every street, blessing each road, each house, and each family for a prosperous year. Small volunteer fire trucks followed behind, keeping the peace and watching out for public safety.

As evening drew near, the entire neighborhood emerged to watch the festivities.

Why do some communities have higher rates of volunteering than others? This question is one of the central concerns of this book. In the previous chapter, I explored why people in various places might volunteer for different types of organizations. I showed how citizen attitudes toward governmental and social responsibility for dealing with social problems explain why some places have more of certain types of volunteer organizations and fewer of others.

Explaining differences in types of volunteering does not, however, explain variation in rates of volunteering from one place to another. Why might one city have very high levels of volunteering, whereas another city with similar demographic characteristics has much lower volunteer participation rates? In this chapter, I investigate how well conventional explanations for variation in volunteering rates can explain volunteer participation in Japan.

TESTING CONVENTIONAL EXPLANATIONS FOR VOLUNTEERING RATES

Recent studies of civic engagement in the United States have generated valuable tools for predicting which individuals will volunteer and how much. For example, we now have a better understanding of why a college-educated suburbanite would be more likely to volunteer than an inner-city high school dropout. However, these studies do not help us understand why one community has much higher rates of volunteerism than another community with similar demographic characteristics. Because most scholars, governments, and activists are interested in building healthy, civically engaged communities, not necessarily changing an individual's psychology or propensity to volunteer, we need to look at volunteering as more of a collective activity than an individual one.

Every day, millions of people perform a myriad of services in their communities for free. They might look after the elderly, clean parks, or risk their lives to put out a fire in a neighbor's house. These volunteers form the core of civil society, the organized element of society that lies between the family and the government. As such, they not only play an invaluable role in preserving and protecting their communities but, by acting as channels of communication with the government, also help keep democracies accountable to their publics.

Thus far, studies of comparative civil society have used three general approaches to explain why some communities or countries have much higher volunteer participation rates than others. They have examined how individual characteristics, such as education or income, increase the likelihood of individuals to volunteer; how social characteristics, such as levels of trust and social capital in a community, shape levels of volunteering; and how characteristics of government, such as levels of spending on social services, influence volunteer participation rates. All of these approaches have given us greater insights into volunteer behavior, but none of them can explain why volunteering is widespread in some communities whereas in others only a select few participate. Current approaches also cannot explain why one community might volunteer for organizations that work closely with their local governments, such as neighborhood associations or volunteer fire departments, whereas another might concentrate its resources on advocacy or service organizations that tend to avoid significant government involvement.

INTERNATIONAL

Amnesty International

• Japan: 6,461 members. http://www.amnesty.or.jp/profile.shtml (Japanese) (5/15/03)

• United States: 300,000 members. Telephone conversation with Amnesty International USA headquarters, in New York (3/8/03)

Greenpeace

• Japan: 4,500 supporters. http://www.greenpeace.or.jp/info/index_en_html (10/23/05)

• United States: 250,000 members. http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/about (10/23/05)

Lions Clubs

Data on membership in Lions Clubs from an email correspondence from the U.S. headquarters of Lions and Lioness Clubs International (1/2/03)

• Australia: 28,185

• Finland: 27,200

• Germany: 41,336

• Japan: 135,285

• Mexico: 12,996

• Norway: 13,748

• Spain: 2,579

• Sweden: 14,826

• Switzerland: 8,136 (includes Luxembourg)

• Turkey: 9,489

• United States: 437,887 (includes affiliates in Bermuda and the Bahamas)

Parent-Teacher Associations

• Finland: Finnish Parent's Association, 200,000 parents; 1,100 associations. European Parents Association (www.epa-parents.org) (10/23/05) and www.suomenvanhempainliitto.fi (10/23/05)

• Japan: 11 million. Nippon PTA Zenkoku Kyougikai (Japan's National PTA Council): http://www.nippon-pta.or.jp/jigyougaiyou/gaiyou_3.html (12/21/05).

• Spain: Confederation Catolica Nacional de Padres de Familia y Padres de Alumnos, 3 million families. http://www.concapa.org/modules.php?name=Contenido&pa=showpage&pid=1 (8/8/06) (Spanish)

• Turkey: none. Email correspondence with Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C. (1/28/03)

• United States: 6 million members, 26,000 local units. National PTA: www.pta.org/jp_why_join_pta.html (12/21/05)

Red Cross

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Profile of national Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies: http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/profile/index.asp (10/23/05)

• Membership analysis based on forty-four countries: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, India, Japan, Korea (South), Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, United States, Venezuela

Rotary Club International

Data on membership in Rotary Clubs from email correspondence (2/10/04) from Rotary Club International. Membership for each country (as of 1/31/04)

• Australia: 35,892

• Finland: 11,650

• […]

Why do some communities have vibrant civic participation, whereas others are only tepidly involved? Why do some communities become involved in organizations with close ties to the government, whereas others choose groups that are more removed? These are some of the most pressing questions in the study of politics and political behavior. This book examined these questions by looking at a diversity of patterns of volunteer participation around the world, but it began its inquiry from an unusual starting point – with volunteer firefighters at a community festival in Japan. This unusual starting point opened up the possibility of developing a theory of civic participation and a robust model that seeks to explain both the types and the rates of volunteer participation in communities around the world.

Although I have made many arguments throughout this book, they can be distilled into one large empirical claim, one methodological claim with theoretical implications, and two theoretical claims. I discuss each in turn, highlighting how my findings give us new insight and help us ask new questions about civil society, civic participation, and democracy.

My main empirical claim is that, contrary to most of what has been written, civil society in Japan is vibrant and thriving. Furthermore, voluntarism in Japan is not a new phenomenon; it has been active for centuries. The reason this fact has been largely ignored is because most Japanese are involved in what I call embedded organizations, organizations that have close, ongoing relationships with the government, rather than the nonembedded organizations that are more common in the United States, which have been the focus of most studies of voluntarism and the nonprofit sector.

This book has developed a theory of volunteer participation that is based on citizen ideas of governmental and individual responsibility and the practices of governmental and societal institutions. The second chapter explored the ways that citizen ideas of governmental and individual responsibility for dealing with social problems in different countries influenced the types of organizations prevalent in a country. The fourth chapter identified ways in which the practices of governmental and societal institutions influence different rates of volunteer participation. This chapter ties both ideas and practices together to develop a model predicting the types and the rates of volunteer participation in communities. This model intends to help answer some of the pressing questions addressed in this book: Why do some communities have more of certain types of volunteer organizations and fewer of others? Why are some communities more civically engaged than others? How do communities motivate and organize volunteers to provide services that the government also provides?

The chapter begins by outlining the model and explaining how ideas and practices fit together to determine the type and rate of volunteer participation in communities. Unlike previous chapters in which ideas and practices were analytically isolated from one another, this model highlights the connection between the two, showing the ways that changes in citizen ideas can alter the practices of governmental and societal institutions and vice versa. The model is then applied to the cases of Kashihara, Sakata, and Sanda that were examined in Chapter 4.

This book seeks the answer to two questions: Why do some communities have much more participation in organizations that have close, embedded relationships with the government, whereas other communities favor organizations with more distant relationships with the government? And why do some communities have much higher rates of volunteering than other, similarly situated communities in the same country? Chapter 1 has developed a theory of volunteer participation that explains both the types of volunteer participation – answering the first question – as well as the rate of volunteer participation – answering the second question. The chapters that followed tested this theory and from the results built a fully specified model that predicts both the types as well as the rates of volunteer participation for any given community.

CHAPTER 2 METHODS

The first task is to test whether the ideas citizens have about governmental and individual responsibility affect the types of organizations they join. To test these two hypotheses, I use data collected from eight different organizations that are active around the world. Three of the organizations – parent-teacher associations, the Red Cross, and volunteer fire departments – are embedded organizations with close relationships with particular government bureaucracies. Their embeddedness is determined by their institutional relationship with the government. Both PTAs and volunteer fire departments have close institutional relationships with particular government bureaucracies – schools in the case of PTAs and municipal fire departments in the case of volunteer fire departments. The Red Cross also works very closely with government bureaucracies.

KASHIHARA

• Issue-Based Volunteering: 59.4 percent of respondents in Nara prefecture answered yes when asked: “Do you think you would like to try volunteering for handicapped people and/or the elderly?” (NHK Housou Bunka Kenkyuu Sohen [NHK Broadcast Culture Institute] 1997, appendix p. 32)

• Community-Based Volunteering: 50.7 percent of respondents in Nara prefecture answered yes when asked: “Do you think you want to participate actively in local projects and/or festivals?” (NHK Housou Bunka Kenkyuu Sohen [NHK Broadcast Culture Institute] 1997, appendix p. 34)

SAKATA

• Issue-based volunteering: 54.5 percent of respondents in Yamagata prefecture answered yes when asked: “Do you think you would like to try volunteering for handicapped people and/or the elderly? (NHK Housou Bunka Kenkyuu Sohen 1997, appendix p. 32)

• Community-based volunteering: 57.5 percent of respondents in Yamagata prefecture answered yes when asked: “Do you think you want to participate actively in local projects and/or festivals?” (NHK Housou Bunka Kenkyuu Sohen 1997, appendix p. 34)

SANDA

• Issue-based volunteering: 52.1 percent of respondents in Hyogo prefecture answered yes when asked: “Do you think you would like to try volunteering for handicapped people and/or the elderly?” (NHK Housou Bunka Kenkyuu Sohen 1997, appendix p. 32)

• Community-based volunteering: 45.9 percent of respondents in Hyogo prefecture answered yes when asked: “Do you think you want to participate actively in local projects and/or festivals?” (NHK Housou Bunka Kenkyuu Sohen 1997, appendix p. 34)