Book
Encyclopedia of Global Studies
Overview of philanthropy for internationally focused audiences.
Everything connected with the issue of economic and social inequality is very urgent and rather debating in many countries. It has reached its bolding point. Why?
The theoretical basis of work is the notion of legitimation as a complex mechanism of social approval of a new phenomenon taking place with the active participation of different social groups and structures, able to influence its final form. In the focus of the empirical analysis the representations of social entrepreneurship that main actors of its legitimacy in Russia have. Among them are: the state, foundations, NPOs and business. We assess the (in)consistency between their representations as well as the reflection of these representations in the characteristics of existing organizations of social entrepreneurship (social enterprises).
Business, government and NPOs are understood as external actors of social enterprise legitimation, as without their recognition the legitimation will not take place. In turn, social enterprises, regardless of whether they come from for-profit or non-profit sector, are seen as objects of legitimation, or as a new actor, not identical to any of the above. It is shown that the contradictions in the positions of key actors can lead to mutually exclusive projects of legitimation of a new phenomenon, so that they will undermine the cognitive and moral legitimacy of each other. The empirical data include the results of the authors survey of 202 social enterprises.
This chapter presents main features of giving in modern Russia. This includes state of the third sector, of the governmental support of the civil society, citizens’ engagement into monetary donations and significant factors that influence it.
Russia is a country with a long-standing philanthropic tradition. Its philanthropic sector underwent an intensive process of institutionalization from the mid-19th century up to the revolution of 1917. The post-Communist transit after 70 years of a state monopoly for solving social problems spurred the formation of a new nonprofit sector, which supplemented the insufficient public sector to satisfy the needs of Russian citizens. The third sector in Russia is still modest in size and its relationship with the state is rather complicated. Nevertheless, the sector developed into an important actor in a public life. From the typological perspective of Salamon and Anheier (1998), Russia is characterized by the social-democratic nonprofit regime as judged by its current ratio of public expenditure funding sources. The state is the largest donor supporting the nonprofit sector, namely socially oriented NPOs. However it is still rather suspicious about human rights activities and third sector’s participation in politics. These factors obstruct third sector development, preventing NPOs from securing financial stability. Formal channels of monetary donations are relatively weak in Russia, majority of Russians are most trustful of giving money directly to the needy that to NPOs. Citizens are often poorly informed about NPOs and do not trust many of them. Basing on all-Russian mass-polls data about direction, amount, frequency of giving is provided as an evidence for this thesis.
This book presents the results of public opinion surveys on participation in charitable activity in Russia. This includes volunteerism and donations, as well as surveys on attitudes towards issues related to interaction between the State and charity providers. These surveys were conducted by the Center for Civil Society Studies and the Non-profit Sector (State University — Higher School of Economics) within the framework of monitoring the status of civil society in Russia.
The data provided characterizes the environment for the development of charitable activity in Russia, the level of the Russian people’s participation in volunteer work and charitable donations, assessments of the interaction between the State and charitable organizations, and between Russian and foreign charitable organizations. This book will be of use to social and political scientists, economists, teachers and students of the social sciences, experts, and anyone interested in the status of charitable activity and civil society development in the Russian Federation.Co-author with David Horton Smith and Sharon Eng of the “The Darker Side of Philanthropy,” a chapter in the forthcoming Routledge Guide to Philanthropy (Harrow, J., Jung, T., and Phillips, S., eds.)
It is known that charity, as with any social institution that depends on both external and internal factors. In this article the author analyzes the relationship of charity and the level of development of such internal factors as trust. The analysis was conducted on a global level and at regional level in Russia. The resulting lack of relationship to regional level and its presence in the world say that in Russia at the moment there is no required number of relevant data, based on which one could draw a conclusion about the level of philanthropy.
Overview of philanthropy for internationally focused audiences.
We address the external effects on public sector efficiency measures acquired using Data Envelopment Analysis. We use the health care system in Russian regions in 2011 to evaluate modern approaches to accounting for external effects. We propose a promising method of correcting DEA efficiency measures. Despite the multiple advantages DEA offers, the usage of this approach carries with it a number of methodological difficulties. Accounting for multiple factors of efficiency calls for more complex methods, among which the most promising are DMU clustering and calculating local production possibility frontiers. Using regression models for estimate correction requires further study due to possible systematic errors during estimation. A mixture of data correction and DMU clustering together with multi-stage DEA seems most promising at the moment. Analyzing several stages of transforming society’s resources into social welfare will allow for picking out the weak points in a state agency’s work.