This article focuses on the relationship between volunteer labor and responsible citizenship in an international NGO context. Situated within critical assessments of the voluntary sector, the article examines how voluntary labor is increasingly shaped and steered by the initiatives of advanced liberalism. Under advanced liberalism, diverse tasks of government are redirected from state bureaucracy and distributed to various organizations, agencies, individuals, and citizen groups. Within this context, it explores some key social transformations that have led to an increasing reliance on voluntary labor in both government and international NGOs. It emphasizes that a range of authorities establish the contemporary voluntary sector as a site for providing answers and solutions to social and economic problems that are now determined to lie outside the reach of the formal domain of the state. Through the use of substantive international examples on voluntary labor in the international development NGO sector, the authors argue that this sector is increasingly implicated in assembling volunteers as ‘responsible citizens' in the delivery of public services. This responsibilization process produces new effects and plans of actions that are different from the way traditional liberal approaches viewed volunteers and volunteerism. The work calls attention to contemporary concerns underscoring voluntary labor and international NGOs, and raises broader questions pertaining to issues of social justice.
African Women's Development and Communication Network [AWDCN] (1994) ‘The Voluntary and Nonprofit Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in M.D. de Oliveira Instituto de Ação Cultural and Rajesh Tandon Society for Participatory Research in Asia (eds) Citizens Strengthening Global Civil Society, pp. 145–194. Washington, DC: CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation .
2.
Albo, G. (2002) ‘Neoliberalism, the State, and the Left: A Canadian Perspective’ , Monthly Review54(1): 46–55 .
3.
Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso .
4.
Appadurai, A. (2001) ‘Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics’ , Environment and Urbanization13(2): 23–43 .
5.
Banerjee, S.G. and Rondinelli, D.A. (2003) ‘Does Foreign Aid Promote Privatization? Empirical Evidence from Developing Countries’ , World Development31(9): 1527–1548 .
6.
Barman, E. (2002) ‘Asserting Difference: The Strategic Response of Nonprofit Organizations to Competition’ , Social Forces80(4): 1191–1222 .
7.
Basok, T. and Ilcan, S. (2003) ‘The Voluntary Sector and the Depoliticization of Civil Society: Implications for Social Justice’ , International Journal of Canadian Studies28: 113–131 .
8.
Blackstone, A. (2004) ‘“It's Just About Being Fair”: Activism and the Politics of Volunteering in the Breast Cancer Movement’ , Gender and Society18(3): 350–368 .
9.
Borch, C. (2005) ‘Systemic Power: Luhmann, Foucault, and Analytics of Power’ , Acta Sociologica48(2): 155–167 .
10.
Brinkerhoff, J. (2003) ‘Donor-Funded Government–NGO Partnership for Public Service Improvement: Cases from India and Pakistan’ , Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations14(1): 105–122 .
11.
Brock, K. and Banting, K. (2001) ‘The Non-Profit Sector and Government in a New Century: An Introduction’, in K. Brock and K. Banting (eds) The Non-Profit Sector and Government in a New Century, pp. 1–28. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press .
12.
Chambers, R. and Pettit, J. (2004) ‘Shifting Power to Make a Difference’, in L. Groves and R. Hinton (eds) Inclusive Aid: Changing Power and Relationships in International Development, pp. 137–162. London: Earthscan .
13.
Darcy D'Oliveira, M. , Leigh, R. and Campanaro, R. (eds) (2000) Below the Waterline of Public Visibility: Roundtable on Volunteerism and Social Development. The Hague: United Nations Volunteers .
14.
Dean, M. (1999) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society. London: Sage .
15.
Dean, M. (2002) ‘Liberal Government and Authoritarianism’ , Economy and Society31(1): 37–61 .
16.
Desforges, L. (2004) ‘The Formation of Global Citizenship: International Non-Governmental Organisations in Britain’ , Political Geography23: 549–569 .
17.
de Tocqueville, A. (1900) Democracy in America, 2 vols, trans. H. Keene. New York: The Colonial Press .
18.
Du Guy, P. (2004) ‘Against “Enterprise” (But Not Against “Enterprise”, For That Would Make No Sense)’ , Organization11(1): 37–57 .
19.
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations (2005) ‘Consultative Status with the United Nations’. Available at: [http://un.org./esa/coordination/ngo], accessed 12 July 2005.
20.
Evans, B.M. and Shields, J. (2002) ‘The Third Sector: Neo-Liberal Restructuring, Governance, and the Remaking of State-Civil Society Relationships’, in C. Dunn (ed.) The Handbook of Canadian Public Administration, pp. 139–158. Toronto: Oxford University Press .
21.
Eyben, R. and Ferguson, C. (2004) ‘How Can Donors Become More Accountable to Poor People?’, in L. Groves and R. Hinton (eds) Inclusive Aid: Changing Power and Relationships in International Development, pp. 163–180. London: Earthscan .
22.
Fagergren, A. (2004) ‘Help for All Distressed: ATD Fourth World is at the Heart of Volunteering’ , UN Chronicle3: 29–31 .
23.
Febbraro, A.R. , Hall, M.H. and Parmegiani, M. (1999) Developing a Typology of the Voluntary Health Sector in Canada: Definition and Classification Issues. Ottawa: Public Health Agency of Canada .
24.
Feldman, S. (1997) ‘NGOs and Civil Society: (Un)Stated Contradictions’ , Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science554(November): 46–65 .
25.
Fisher, W.F. (1997) ‘Doing Good? The Politics and Antipolitics of NGO Practices’ , Annual Review of Anthropology26: 439–464 .
26.
Giddens, A. (1994) Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press .
27.
Gifford, C. (2004) ‘National and Post-National Dimensions of Citizenship Education in the UK’ , Citizenship Studies8(2): 145–158 .
28.
Goodin, R. (2003) Reflective Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
29.
Hartman, Y. , Jennings, L. and Gilmour, J. (2000) ‘“Hi, I'm Joe and I am a Mutual Participant in Society”: The Rise of Compulsory Voluntarism’ , paper presented at TASA Conference, Flinders University, Adelaide, 6–8 December.
30.
Hustinx, L. and Lammertyn, F. (2003) ‘Collective and Reflexive Styles of Volunteering: A Sociological Modernization Perspective’ , Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations14(2): 167–187 .
31.
Ilcan, S. and Basok, T. (2004) ‘Community Government: Voluntary Agencies, Social Justice and the Responsibilization of Citizens’ , Citizenship Studies8(2): 129–144 .
32.
Ilcan, S. and Lacey, A. (in press) ‘Governing through Empowerment: Oxfam's Global Reform and Trade Campaigns’ , Globalizations3(2).
33.
Ilcan, S. and Phillips, L. (2003) ‘Making Food Count: Expert Knowledge and Global Technologies of Government’ , Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology40(4): 441–461 .
34.
Ilcan, S. , O'Connor, D. and Oliver, M. (2003) ‘Contract Governance and the Canadian Public Sector,’Relations Industrielle/Industrial Relations58(4): 620–643 .
35.
Isin, E. (2000) ‘Governing Cities without Government’, in E. Isin (ed.) Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City, pp. 148–168. London and New York: Routledge .
36.
Isin, E. and Wood, P. (1999) Citizenship and Identity. London: Sage .
37.
International Monetary Fund [IMF]/World Bank (2005) Global Monitoring Report. Available at: [http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=18196.0], accessed 13 July 2005.
38.
Jenson, J. and Phillips, S.D. (2001) ‘Redesigning the Canadian Citizenship Regime: Remaking the Institutions of Representation’, in C. Crouch , K. Eder and D. Tambini (eds) Citizenship, Markets, and the State, pp. 69–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
39.
Kearns,A.J. (1992) ‘Active Citizenship and Urban Governance’ , Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers17(1): 20–34 .
40.
Kendall, J. (2003) The Voluntary Sector. London: Routledge .
41.
Korten, D.C. (1990) Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda. West Hartford, CN: Kumarian Press .
42.
Lacey, A. (2002) ‘Networks of Protest, Communities of Activism: Autonomous Activism in Contemporary Britain’, PhD thesis, Monash University, Melbourne.
43.
Lacey, A. (2005) ‘Networked Communities: Social Centres and Activist Spaces in Contemporary Britain’ , Space and Culture: The International Journal of Social Spaces8(3): 286–301 .
44.
Lebon, N. (1997) ‘Volunteer and Professionalized Activism in the Sao Paolo Women's Movement’ , Conference paper, 1997 Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Guadalajara, Mexico.
45.
Lewis, J. (1999) ‘Reviewing the Relationship between the Voluntary Sector and the State in Britain in the 1990s’ , Voluntas10(3): 255–270 .
46.
Lissner, J. (1977) The Politics of Altruism: A Study of the Political Behaviour of Voluntary Development Agencies. Geneva: Lutheran World Federation .
47.
MacDonald, L. (2001) ‘NGOs and the Discourse of Participatory Development in Costa Rica’, in H. Veltmeyer and A. O'Malley (eds) Transcending Neoliberalism: Community Based Development in Latin America, pp: 125–153. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press .
48.
Marinetto, M. (2003) ‘Who Wants to be an Active Citizen? The Politics and Practices of Community Involvement’ , Sociology37(1): 103–120 .
49.
Martinez Lucio, M. and MacKenzie, R. (2004) ‘“Unstable Boundaries?” Evaluating the “New Regulation” within Employment Relations’ , Economy and Society33(1): 77–97 .
50.
Medeiros, C. (2001) ‘Civilizing the Popular? The Law of Popular Participation and the Design of a New Civil Society in the 1990s Bolivia’ , Critique of Anthropology21(4): 401–425 .
51.
Milligan, C. and Fyfe, N. (2005) ‘Preserving Space for Volunteers: Exploring the Links Between Voluntary Welfare Organizations, Volunteering and Citizenship’ , Urban Studies42(3): 417–433 .
52.
Mohan, G. (2002) ‘The Disappointments of Civil Society: The Politics of NGO Intervention in Northern Ghana’ , Political Geography21: 125–154 .
53.
Morison, J. (2000) ‘The Government-Voluntary Sector Compacts: Governance, Governmentality, and Civil Society’ , Journal of Law and Society27(1): 98–132 .
54.
Nelson, P. (2001) ‘Information, Location, and Legitimacy: The Changing Bases of Civil Society Involvement in International Economic Policy’, in M. Edwards and J. Gaventa (eds) Global Citizen Action, pp. 59–72. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner .
55.
Olssen, M. (2004) ‘From the Crick Report to the Parekh Report: Multiculturalism, Cultural Difference, and Democracy – The Re-Visioning of Citizenship Education’ , British Journal of Sociology and Education25(2): 179–192 .
56.
O'Malley, P. (2001) ‘Genealogy, Systematisation and Resistance in “Advanced Liberalism”’, in itorG. Wickham and G. Pavlich (eds) Rethinking Law, Society and Governance: Foucault's Bequest, pp. 13–25. Portland, OR: Hart .
57.
Parsons, E. and Broadbridge, A. (2004) ‘Managing Change in Nonprofit Organisations’ , Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations15(3): 227–243 .
58.
Peck, J. and Tickell, A. (2002) ‘Neoliberalizing Space’ , Antipode34: 380–404 .
59.
Pelizzoni, L. (2003) ‘Knowledge, Uncertainty and the Transformation of the Public Sphere’ , European Journal of Social Theory6(3): 327–355 .
60.
Pergande, D. (2002) ‘Private Voluntary Aid and Nation Building in South Vietnam: The Humanitarian Politics of CARE, 1954–61’ , Peace and Change27(2): 165–197 .
61.
Randeria, S. (2003) ‘Cunning States and Unaccountable International Institutions: Legal Plurality, Social Movements and Rights of Local Communities to Common Property Resources’ , Archives Européennes de SociologieXLIV(1): 27–60 .
62.
Rose, N. (1996) ‘The Death of the Social? Refiguring the Territory of Government’ , Economy and Society25(3): 327–356 .
63.
Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
64.
Rose, N. (2000) ‘Community, Citizenship and the Third Way’ , American Behavioral Scientist43(9): 1395–1411 .
65.
Rose, N. and Miller, P. (1992) ‘Political Power Beyond the State: Problematics of Government’ , British Journal of Sociology43(2): 172–205 .
66.
Rotolo, T. and Wilson, J. (2004) ‘What Happened to the “Long Civic Generation”? Explaining Cohort Differences in Volunteerism’ , Social Forces82(3): 1091–1121 .
67.
Roy, K. and Ziemek, S. (2000) ‘On the Economics of Volunteering’, ZEF Discussion Papers on Development Policy. Bonn: Center for Developmental Research .
Salamon, L.M. , Hems, L.C. and Chinnock, K. (2000) ‘The Nonprofit Sector: For What and for Whom?’ , Working Papers of The John Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, No. 37, Baltimore, MD.
70.
Sethi, H. (1993) ‘Action Groups in the New Politics’, in P. Wignaraja (ed.) New Social Movements in the South: Empowering the People, pp. 230–255. London: Zed Books .
71.
Simon, J. (2002) ‘Taking Risks: Extreme Sports and the Embrace of Risk in Advanced Liberal Societies’, in J. Simon and T. Baker (eds) Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility, pp. 177–208. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
72.
Smillie, I. (1995) The Alms Bazaar. London: IT .
73.
Swain, N. (2003) ‘Social Capital and its Uses’ , Archives Européennes de SociologieXLIV(2): 185–212 .
74.
Swift, J. (1999) Civil Society in Question. Toronto: Between the Lines .
75.
Turner, B.S. (2001) ‘The Erosion of Citizenship’ , British Journal of Sociology52(2): 189–209 .
76.
Turner, S. (1998) ‘Global Civil Society,Anarchy and Governance: Assessing an Emerging Paradigm’ , Journal of Peace Research35(1): 5–42 .
77.
Tvedt,T. (2002) ‘Development NGOs: Actors in a Global Civil Society or in a New International Social System?’ , Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations13(4): 363–375 .
78.
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) (2003) ‘Volunteerism and Development’ , Essentials12(October): 1–12 .
79.
United Nations Volunteers (UNV) (2005a) ‘Vacancies for Volunteers’. Available at: [http://www.unvolunteers.org/volunteers/unvvacs/index.htm], accessed 10 July 2005.
80.
United Nations Volunteers (UNV) (2005b) ‘Citizenship Training to Help Strengthen Decentralization Process in Burkina Faso’. Available at: [http://www.unv.org/Infobase/news_releases/2005/05_07_07BFA_citizen.htm], accessed 15 July 2005.
81.
Urry, J. (2000a) Sociology Beyond Societies. London: Routledge .
82.
Urry, J. (2000b) ‘Global Flows and Global Citizenship’, in E. Isin (ed.) Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City, pp. 62–78. London: Routledge .
83.
Urry, J. (2005) ‘The Good News and the Bad News’ , Critical Sociology31(3): 375–378 .
84.
Van Rooy, A. (2004) The Global Legitimacy Game: Civil Society, Globalization, and Protest. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan .
85.
Vision 21 (2004) ‘Volunteerism and Social Services in the 21st Century’. Available at: [http://www.vision21.neostrada.pl/ab.html], accessed 30 March 2005.
86.
Wallace, T. , Crowther, S. and Shepherd, A. (1998) ‘Is the New Professionalism Sapping Grassroots Vigour?’ Available at: [www.id21.org/society/8cNH2.html], accessed 2 February 2005.
87.
Weber, H. (2004) ‘Reconstituting the “Third World”? Poverty Reduction and Territoriality in the Global Politics of Development’ , Third World Quarterly25(1): 187–206 .
88.
Weiss, T.G. and Collins, C. (1996) Humanitarian Challenges and Intervention: World Politics and the Dilemmas of Help. Boulder, CO: Westview Press .
89.
White, D. (2003) ‘Social Policy and Solidarity, Orphans of the New Model of Social Cohesion’ , Canadian Journal of Sociology28(1): 51–76 .
90.
Willetts, P. (2001) ‘Transnational Actors and International Organizations in Global Politics’, in J. Baylis and S. Smith (eds) The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, 2nd edn, pp. 356–386. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
91.
World Bank Social Development Program (2002) World Bank–Civil Society Collaboration – Progress Report for Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001. Available at: [http://siteresources.worldbank.org/CSO/Resources/ProgRptFY0001.pdf], accessed 12 July 2005.
92.
Yamamoto, T. and Ashizawa, K.G. (2001) ‘Overview’, in T. Yamamoto and K.G. Ashizawa (eds) Governance and Civil Society in a Global Age, pp. 9–29. Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange .
