Volunteering Under Institutional and Structural Change: Genesis and Agent Influences

Abstract

The genesis of volunteering as a source of social agency in conditions of social tension and crisis situations shifts research attention from considering volunteering as an activity that supports the work of official structures, to considering it as a self-sufficient activity in solving urgent problems facing society in situations of social instability and institutional instability. As a research perspective, the complexity paradigm is chosen, which offers a view of social processes through the prism of nonlinear system dynamics. The basis of the conceptual framework of the study - the allocation of the two mechanisms of social change – organizational and self-organizational. The processes of social self-organization reveal themselves in the crisis moments of the life of society through the activities of powerful volunteer communities, which become agents of change due to their emergence. The characteristics of such a volunteer community are their attractiveness, procedurality and specific hierarchy, which has a leadership basis. The genesis of the community of volunteers is viewed in the context of socio-structural changes. Using the example of the interaction of volunteers with the communities of internally displaced persons and combatants, it is shown that the communities of donors and recipients are interconnected in their own development. The features of the dynamics of volunteering agency in crisis conditions are determined, which depend on the ratio of self-organizing and organizational mechanisms at different stages of crisis situations. Since the beginning of the crisis, self-organizing structures have been active independent agents, however, as the institutional component strengthens, the initiative to restore public order is gradually shifting to organizational structures and the role of agency in self-organizing structures decreases. A decrease in the energy potential of a volunteering agency is associated with internal restructuring and adaptation of communities that arose at the time of the crisis and were the main recipients of assistance. However, this potential can recover quickly against the background of new challenges (eg pandemic) and unwillingness to respond to the situation by the organizational structures.