Capturing the Civic Lives of Cities: An Organizational, Place-Based Perspective on Civil Society in Global Cities

Abstract

Introduction to Global Perspectives special collection: The Civic Life of Cities around the World In a wired world, how do social interactions among organizations and people continue to define civil society? Our co-produced approach to studying civil societies through a place-based, organizational lens provides fresh answers to perennial questions about voice, accountability, and embeddedness. The six articles in this collection on the civic life of cities draw on more than 1,400 interviews with organizational leaders in San Francisco, Seattle, Shenzhen, Singapore, Sydney, and Vienna. Moving beyond the “big theories” of civil society, the articles illustrate the value of our dual emphasis on place and organizations by showing how comparisons of the people, practices, and partnerships of civil society organizations enable new middle-range theories of civil society. This approach promises to offer rich comparative insights into similarities and differences among organizations around the globe.

Putting categories in their place: A research agenda for theorizing place in category research

“…Thus, social movement organizations, as "collective challenges to authority in political and cultural domains" (Rao et al, 2003: 796; emphasis added), must operate locally to effect change-even if the movement has global reach. The environmental movement, for example, must ultimately effect change in local regulations, even if elements of the movement operate transnationally (Brandtner, 2022;Brandtner and Powell, 2022).…”

“…The adage “think globally, act locally” that underpins the contemporary environmental movement is credited to the Scottish urban planner Patrick Geddes (1915: 269), who advocated that “Local consciousness diffuses and intensifies; it also widens into comparison of city with city.” Thus, social movement organizations, as “collective challenges to authority in political and cultural domains” (Rao et al, 2003: 796; emphasis added), must operate locally to effect change—even if the movement has global reach. The environmental movement, for example, must ultimately effect change in local regulations, even if elements of the movement operate transnationally (Brandtner, 2022; Brandtner and Powell, 2022).…”