The Legal Regulation of Organized Civil Society

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-32
Author(s):  
Nicole Bolleyer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Public Benefit ◽  
National Studies ◽  
Cross National

This introduction specifies the central questions addressed in this study—namely, what are the legal environments (as constituted by binding legal regulation) that have been created in long-lived democracies to steer the behaviour of membership-based, voluntary organizations—interest groups, parties, and public benefit organizations—that constitute organized civil society? And why do democracies adopt more or less constraining regulation in this sphere, in which state intervention is generally considered contentious? Having done so, it addresses three fundamental issues stressing the importance of these themes: first, why bother writing a book-length study on the legal regulation of voluntary organizations in particular? Second, why not focus on one particular type of organization (for example, interest groups or parties), as earlier cross-national studies have done? And, finally, what do we gain substantially and analytically by comparing the nature of legal regulation not only across a variety of countries but also across distinct organizational types and why focus on the three types of interest groups, parties, and public benefit organizations and not others?

The State and Civil Society

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Bolleyer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Public Benefit ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Voluntary Membership

State regulation of civil society organizations such as interest groups, parties, and public benefit organizations is expanding yet widely contested, often portrayed as illegitimate intrusion. Despite ongoing debates about the nature of state–voluntary relations in various social science disciplines, we know surprisingly little about why long-lived democracies adopt more or less constraining legal approaches in this sphere. Drawing on insights from political science, sociology, and comparative law as well as public administration research, this book addresses this important question, conceptually, theoretically, and empirically. It addresses the conceptual and methodological challenges related to developing systematic, comparative insights into the nature of complex legal environments affecting voluntary membership organizations, by simultaneously covering a wide range of democracies and the regulation applicable to different types of voluntary organizations. Proposing the analytical tools to tackle those challenges, it studies in depth the intertwined and overlapping legal environments of political parties, interest groups, and public benefit organizations across nineteen long-lived democracies. After presenting an innovative interdisciplinary theoretical framework theorizing democratic states’ legal disposition or disinclination to regulate voluntary membership organizations in a constraining or permissive fashion, this framework is empirically tested. Applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), the comparative analysis identifies three main ‘paths’ accounting for the relative constraints in the legal environments democracies have created for organized civil society, defined by different configurations of political systems’ democratic history, their legal family, and voluntary sector traditions. Providing the foundation for a mixed-methods design, three ideal-typical representatives of each path—Sweden, the UK, and France—are selected for the in-depth study of these legal environments’ long-term evolution, to capture reform dynamics and their drivers that have shaped group and party regulation over many decades.

The Voluntarist Path towards a Permissive Legal Environment for Organized Civil Society

2018 ◽  
pp. 233-251
Author(s):  
Nicole Bolleyer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Legal Environment ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Benefit Allocation

In the last part of the study, ideal-typical representatives of three ‘sufficient paths’ identified by the QCA analysis were chosen for in-depth analysis. After explaining the case selection, this chapter analyses the evolution of the legal framework in Sweden representing the ‘voluntarist’ path towards a permissive environment for voluntary organizations. Despite various initiatives towards the adoption of legal regulation of voluntary organizations, reforms were usually considered not sufficiently beneficial for the organizations targeted, or legislation was considered unsuitable as an instrument to address the problem at hand, tendencies rooted in the informality of historically grown relations between the state and organizations in this social democratic voluntary sector regime. If legislation was adopted, it echoed characteristics of Scandinavian civil law by tending towards broad principles that impose few direct constraints on the organizations targeted, leaving plenty of room for interpretation, while putting an emphasis on benefit allocation.

The Regulation of Interest Groups and Public Benefit Organizations

2018 ◽  
pp. 123-164
Author(s):  
Nicole Bolleyer
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Public Benefit ◽  
Empirical Assessment ◽  
Legal Restrictions ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Tax Benefits ◽  
Lobby Regulation

This chapter presents a detailed empirical assessment of cross-country variation in the regulation of interest groups and public benefit organizations in the operation stage—covering the regulation of these organizations’ constitutive functions as well as of resource access—across nineteen long-lived democracies. Regarding regulation of organizations’ constitutive functions, it covers areas such as lobby regulation, third-party regulation, and other legal restrictions on groups’ political activities. In terms of resource regulation, it covers aspects such as tax benefits for donors and organizations themselves as well as the regulation of fundraising. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the monitoring and supervision structures in charge of implementing group regulation. The analysis shows how interest groups and public benefit organizations have to operate within a complex web of legal regulation, which fundamentally affects their ability to engage in political activities and access state resources.

The Regulation of Interest Groups and Public Benefit Organizations in Long-Lived Democracies

2018 ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Nicole Bolleyer
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Public Benefit ◽  
Empirical Assessment ◽  
Cross Country

This chapter presents a detailed empirical assessment of cross-country variation in the regulation of interest groups and public benefit organizations in the stages of organizational formation and dissolution across nineteen long-lived democracies. More specifically, it covers constitutional rights, ban regulations, and legal incorporation. On that basis, it assesses differences between non-profit (NPO) regulation and the regulation of public benefit organizations (PBO regulation). The analysis stresses the importance of ‘legal inclusiveness’—that is, NPO regulation applying to public benefit organizations as well as the entanglement between NPO and PBO regulation reflecting the blurred boundary between the types of organizations such legal regulation applies to.

Studying Legal Regulation of Organized Civil Society Cross-Nationally

2018 ◽  
pp. 33-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Bolleyer
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Legal Concept ◽  
Constitutive Function ◽  
Organizational Functions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
National Analysis ◽  
Cross National

This chapter defines the basic concepts this study builds on (state privilege and constraint; legal inclusiveness and complexity) and, on this basis, proposes an analytical framework allowing for the cross-national analysis of the legal regulation applicable to the three types of voluntary organizations: interest groups, parties, and public benefit organizations. Specifically, the framework proposes a study organization-centred legal regulation by capturing regulation in the three stages of organizational formation, operation (organizations’ constitutive function and resources), and dissolution, by going beyond regulation that explicitly names the three organizational types (for example, political party), that uses a particular legal concept (for example, charity), or that regulates central organizational functions (for example, lobbying). This analytical framework underpins the construction of cross-national indicators across a wide range of regulatory target areas, which is detailed alongside the methods for analysis and the rationale for selecting the nineteen long-lived democracies covered.

The Functionalist Path towards a Constraining Legal Environment for Organized Civil Society

2018 ◽  
pp. 252-280
Author(s):  
Nicole Bolleyer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Long Term Evolution ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Legal Environment ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
Term Evolution ◽  
The Uk

The UK represents the ‘functionalist path’ towards a constraining legal environment for voluntary organizations and contrasts strikingly with the Swedish scenario. Its long-term evolution has been characterized by the adoption of highly specific and constraining legislation by now applicable to charities, interest groups, and political parties, echoing broader tendencies associated with statutory legislation in common-law systems. Taking the democratic system’s long-term stability for granted, constraining legislation was adopted often with limited considerations of the possibly intrusive effects on civil society actors and without seeing the need to actively support voluntary organizations through a broader provision of direct state benefits.

The Diversity of Legal Environments for Organized Civil Society in Long-Lived Democracies

2018 ◽  
pp. 167-191
Author(s):  
Nicole Bolleyer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Regulatory Constraints ◽  
Regulatory Styles ◽  
State Interference

This chapter shows that the legal regulation of groups and parties adopted within long-lived democracies resemble each other sufficiently to be aggregated in one overall Legal Regulation Index, which allows us to rank democracies’ legal environments for voluntary organizations on a continuum from highly permissive to highly constraining legal environments. Having explored the cross-country variation in regulatory constraints applied to voluntary organizations across the nineteen democracies studied, this chapter presents an interdisciplinary, theoretical framework to account for democracies’ legal dispositions building on neo-institutionalist arguments associated with notions of ‘state traditions’ and ‘regulatory styles’. This framework integrates arguments derived from literature in political science, sociology, public administration research, and comparative law, specifying why lawmakers might be legitimated or able to adopt constraining regulation in an area in which state interference is often contested.

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