Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive of over 1,500 titles.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Chapter 2 sets out the macro-level components of the book’s argument. It introduces the concept of historically variable contexts and examines key projects of social change. It explores different relationships between SCOs and the state, showing how they are shaped by organisations’ values and tactical choices as much as by regime types. It discusses interaction between different modernisation processes, illustrating how these have been shaped by and shape SCOs. Given that historical processes are deeply intertwined rather than following a strict chronological order, the chapter pursues three historical sequences of social change. The first thread begins with colonisation processes, which underpinned the emergence of racialised capitalism, were intertwined with the development of humanitarianism and led to independence struggles. The second thread turns to the emergence of socialism as a response to capitalism and discuss the mixed economy of welfare involving charities, self-help groups and the state. The third thread addresses the rise of fascism in the first half of the 20th century and discusses contemporary populist movements. The chapter demonstrates that different regime types give rise to different types of SCOs and, conversely, that different types of SCOs can contribute to the emergence of different regime types.
Chapter 6 examines the relations between SCOs in more depth by discussing the collaboration, coalitions, conflict, and competition among SCOs and the circumstances under which they occur. It focuses on the core idea of our book, that we cannot understand the emergence, activity and impact of SCOs in isolation. Interactions among SCOs have important ramifications as they influence each other to a greater or lesser extent when they come into, or purposefully avoid, contact, or if they compete, with one another. This chapter illustrates the dynamism of contact between SCOs, as actions and reactions that come to shape whether trust-benefit relations can be built. Debates about intersectionality, coalition-building, and counter-movements inform the examination of relationships among SCOs. Competition can result in institutional isomorphism as well as differentiation. The emphasis on SCOs more broadly allows us to examine the circumstances under which organisations collaborate or compete. Collaboration between SCOs is important because it might cancel out the risks of NGOisation. Not all organisations become tame because it is the synergy of SCOs that results in social change. Roth and Saunders acknowledge the importance of radical uncompromising critique as well as pragmatic – and diplomatic – compromise. Lastly, the chapter examines conflict between SCOs in the context of counter-movements.
The conclusion returns to the core argument that a focus of SCOs contributes to a theory of social change that acknowledges both structure and agency. The authors once more stress the central argument of the volume: that analysing different types of SCOs synergistically and historically allows us to recognise their important role in generating social change. The holistic understanding of SCOs presented in the book is made possible through, and contributes to, the integration of social movement studies, third sector studies, and the study of NGOs. The examination of SCMs’ biographies and the coalition-building between different types of SCOs requires an integrative view of literatures, while integration of literature enhances analysis of SCOs. The importance of temporality, varieties of change making and holism are stressed. Implications for activists and future directions for research are suggested.
This chapter introduces the core concepts and ideas of the book and why they matter. The book is about the wide range of organisations that are responding to crises and are involved in bringing about and resisting social change. The book, Organising for Change, introduces the concepts of social change organisations (SCOs) and social change makers (SCMs). The introduction first situates the argument about the importance of SCOs and SCMs within contemporary times and stresses their importance for shaping societies. The contributions that a range of strategically differentiated and sometimes overlapping SCOs can and do make to social change and to each other in synergy through sets of interactions and reactions will be examined. To do so, the chapter brings into dialogue different and hitherto largely unconnected bodies of scholarship on social movement organisations, non-governmental organisations and not-for-profit organisations. At the end of the introduction, data and methods on which the book is based are described and an overview of the book is provided.
To carry out their work, SCOs need to mobilise a variety of resources. This chapter considers the different types of resources that SCOs require that are related to the tactics they perform and their organisational structures. Roth and Saunders illustrate how all resource choices have a cost-benefit balance, which – true to the interactionist approach that underpins the book – leads to further sets of actions and reactions among SCOs. The chapter demonstrates that every resourcing choice involves compromises and that none can ever be perfect. The first section of the chapter considers how resource demands are related to the strategies and tactics of SCOs. Organisations with different primary functions, goals and specialisms require different combinations of material and non-material resources. The second part discusses the sources from which SCOs obtain resources and how this relates to their goals and values. The third part focuses on the consequences of resource choices, including organisational pathways and technological change. How do organisations that seek upward accountability (towards donors) fare – are they more at risk of organisational demise? And do SCOs that side-step downward accountability (towards communities) risk distancing themselves from their constituencies (value accountability)?
Based on decades of research, this book explores global social change processes through the concepts of social change organisations (SCOs) and social change makers (SCMs) – the individuals working within and alongside SCOs.
The book delves into a vast array of compelling social justice issues, from tackling inequality to championing human rights, bridging the realms of social movement and third sector research.
Inspiring and empowering, this is essential reading for scholars, students, NGOs, and activists alike.
The book argues that SCOs are co-producers of social change that are simultaneously creating and responding to social change and continue to be involved in historical, political, and social transformations. This chapter returns to the outcomes of SCOs. Four broad categories of SCO ‘outcomes’ are distinguished. Political and legislative outcomes include institutional transformation. Mobilisation outcomes encompass networking and diffusion processes. Socio-cultural outcomes include changed public attitudes. Finally, the effects on individuals are examined, both those who are involved in social change making (internal individual outcomes) as well as individuals who benefit (or not) from the material/well-being services provided by SCOs (external individual outcomes). The different outcomes reflect the goals and strategies of SCOs as well as the context in which they operate. It is noted that the different types of outcomes of SCOs are often related to one another and that SCOs often achieve more than one outcome. Nevertheless, it is important to analytically distinguish between different types of outcomes and how they are related (or not).
Chapter 5 turns to the undoubtedly most important resource of SCOs: SCMs, the people who found, run and participate in SCOs. Participation in SCOs is embedded in everyday life and matters for the recruitment as well as for the sustainability of SCO involvement throughout the life course of SCMs. The chapter discusses recruitment and participation in SCOs as well as professionalisation processes. Furthermore, the chapter addresses the factors that motivate SCMs and how preventing burnout can contribute to the sustainability of organising for change. SCMs might stay in the same SCO for many decades, but they also might engage in multiple SCOs engaging in different causes and tactics over their lifetime. Different patterns of participation, which include the boundary crossing between different causes, strategies, and SCOs are explored.
Chapter 3 looks more specifically at the ways in which SCOs go about contributing to social change. It discusses the repertoires, strategies and tactics that they use, including protest, advocacy, and service-provision. The chapter illustrates how the actions of SCOs are a set of processes stemming from how they react to each other and to the historically variable contexts in which they are active. In other words, SCOs shape and are shaped by historically variable contexts. Technologies play a crucial role for the sustainability and transformation of repertoires of SCOs. The chapter explores the key tactics of SCOs through the lens of a selection of causes. This includes violent uprisings are illustrated through struggles for the end of colonial rule. It also discusses non-violent protest and routine demonstrations, illustrated through various causes, including environmentalism. Then it turns to advocacy drawing on examples of humanitarian organisations. This is followed by a discussion of service provision by feminist organisations. The chapter shows how different causes attract varieties of tactics. Service providing SCOs represent important infrastructures for the people who participate in a variety of tactics and SCOs.
This chapter develops the core concepts of the book – social change makers (SCM) and social change organisations (SCO). The first part of the chapter focuses on the SCMs and explains that a biographical perspective is needed to understand their involvement in SCOs. The second part of the chapter reviews the ways in which SMOs, NGOs, and not-for-profit organisations have been conceptualised in the existing literature. The work stresses the overlapping functions and remits of organisations that are often pigeon holed leading to siloed knowledge of SCOs. The chapter makes the case for why SCOs is a better concept than previous conceptualisations of such organisations. Furthermore, a variety of SCOs are introduced and our argument is situated vis-à-vis existing scholarship. The third part of the chapter reviews different forms of SCM involvement in SCOs.
