TY - JOUR
T1 - Democratic Participation in Voluntary Associations
T2 - A Multilevel Analysis of Sports Clubs in Europe
AU - Ibsen, Bjarne
AU - Elmose-Østerlund, Karsten
AU - Feiler, Svenja
AU - Breuer, Christoph
AU - Seippel, Ørnulf
AU - Van der Roest, Jan Willem
AU - Scheerder, Jeroen
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Non-profit associations are usually democratically organized, and this feature plays a legitimizing role for the public support to associations. This article examines which characteristics at country level, organizational level and individual level can explain variations with regard to member engagement in the association democracy in sports clubs in Europe. The statistical analyses use data on 12,755 members from 642 sports clubs in ten European countries. The findings show that the majority of the members in sports clubs participate in the association democracy, but the level and form of engagement varies considerably. At the country level, no link between the democratic strength and quality of the countries on the one hand and member engagement on the other could be identified. Instead, characteristics at the organizational and individual level were found to be relevant. More concretely, (1) the size of the sports club, (2) the socioeconomic background of the members (gender, age and education), and (3) the way in which the members are involved in and affiliated to the club (engaged in voluntary work, participating in social activities, etc.) were found to be significantly correlated with the engagement of members in the association democracy.
AB - Non-profit associations are usually democratically organized, and this feature plays a legitimizing role for the public support to associations. This article examines which characteristics at country level, organizational level and individual level can explain variations with regard to member engagement in the association democracy in sports clubs in Europe. The statistical analyses use data on 12,755 members from 642 sports clubs in ten European countries. The findings show that the majority of the members in sports clubs participate in the association democracy, but the level and form of engagement varies considerably. At the country level, no link between the democratic strength and quality of the countries on the one hand and member engagement on the other could be identified. Instead, characteristics at the organizational and individual level were found to be relevant. More concretely, (1) the size of the sports club, (2) the socioeconomic background of the members (gender, age and education), and (3) the way in which the members are involved in and affiliated to the club (engaged in voluntary work, participating in social activities, etc.) were found to be significantly correlated with the engagement of members in the association democracy.
KW - Macro, meso and micro level
KW - Organizational characteristics
KW - Participatory democracy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060571569&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/ee770411-4e51-3ff7-87cf-da93f838a9fa/
U2 - 10.1007/s11266-018-00088-y
DO - 10.1007/s11266-018-00088-y
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85060571569
SN - 0957-8765
VL - 30
SP - 1148
EP - 1163
JO - Voluntas
JF - Voluntas
IS - 5
ER -