Sue Kenny, Marilyn Taylor, Jenny Onix and Marjorie Mayo: Challenging the Third Sector: Global Prospects for Active Citiz
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BOOK REVIEW
Sue Kenny, Marilyn Taylor, Jenny Onix and Marjorie Mayo: Challenging the Third Sector: Global Prospects for Active Citizenship Policy Press, Bristol-Chicago 2017, pp. 248, References, Index, Paperback $45.95 Giovanni Moro1
Ó International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University 2019
The authors work in Australian and British Universities and have a background in community development, third sector and active citizenship studies. The core of the book focuses on the role of the third sector in the promotion of active citizenship in contemporary societies and in the framework of contested neoliberal hegemony. The authors successfully portray the uncertainties around this topic, as well as its extreme importance. They present and analyze the current debate among scholars and practitioners on the meaning of third sector organizations and active citizenship—or citizen agency—without seeking to find resolutions, but rather highlighting existing criticalities and challenges in both the theoretical basis and the empirical research which inform the debate. Cases from Russia, Indonesia, Peru, Uruguay, Sweden, UK, and farther afield in the global landscape are discussed, but specific attention is paid to non-Western experiences and contexts, where cultural patterns, institutional arrangements and operational models strongly differ from the standard view. The book is divided into three parts. Part I is devoted to concepts and contexts regarding the relationship between third sector and active citizenship. Various definitions of key terms, such as civil society, volunteerism, and the third sector, are presented and analyzed to reveal a multiplicity of features and meanings, concomitantly demonstrating a sensibility to the contradictions and confusions which surround this topic. Part II explores different forms of
Book review editor: Marc Jegers. & Giovanni Moro [email protected] 1
Rome, Italy
active citizenship. This concept is defined on one side as civic commitment (citizens who ‘‘actively work together to preserve and protect, to enhance and improve the community in which they live, generating social capital and encouraging social cohesion,’’ p. 4) and on the other side as civil commitment (supporting ‘‘marginalized groups in finding their voice and organizing resistance to discrimination and oppression,’’ p. 5). Part III, on the emerging forms of active citizenship and related challenges, pays special attention to the new global movements and to the phenomenon of online mobilization through social networks. A conclusion summarizing the main topics closes this volume without committing to a solution. The book is highly recommendable reading for several reasons. It highlights the strong link between the object of study with the ongoing changes in shape and content of citizenship; it takes a critical approach to the concepts and theories related to the third sector and active citizenship; it problematizes the ‘‘dark sides’’ of third sector organizations, both in their organizational
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