Civic Culture Frameworks, Volunteerism, NGOs, & Glocalization: Implications for Social Services in Russia.

Abstract

This dissertation contributes to theory development in two areas, globalization and civil society, as they relate to social service provision by nonstate actors in a post-communist region. In Chapter 2, it illustrates the applicability of glocalization (a re-conceptualization of globalization theory) as a conceptual framework in understanding the development of social work education and practice, particularly in the Russian context. In concluding the chapter on glocalization, I advocate for the practice of critical glocalization by social workers. This approach recognizes and looks for how actors and power interact, and it respects that the active space of glocal interaction produces innovation. Chapters four and five provide rich insight into the Russian context of social work (sotsialnaya rabota) and social service provision by nonstate actors and contribute to theory development in the area of civil society. By refining the concept of civic culture framework and applying it to the study of volunteerism and NGO development in social services in Russia, this work illuminates how various stakeholders perceive the developing system and how those perceptions relate to various actions and outcomes in service delivery, service utilization (Chapter 4), and cooperation with the state (Chapter 5). It finds that the relative power of stakeholder groups dictates which frameworks remain dominant, and illustrate how these power configurations affect services. The fifth chapter shows how historical context, foreign influence, and political climate affect civic culture frameworks of NGO leaders, and how two diverging framework patterns develop over time, coinciding with the development of two types of NGOs. This finding illustrates the importance of civic culture frameworks in understanding NGO development in contexts of emerging civil society. Civic culture frameworks and the concept of glocalization are intimately related. Civic culture frameworks make up the mental discourses of actors in the local, global, and glocal spaces of social services and social policy. In the glocal area particularly, civic culture frameworks are in flux, as people interact with a variety of actors, structures, and discourses, trying to navigate old ideas, global influence, and innovation.