State–Voluntary Relations in Contemporary Welfare Systems: New Politics or Voluntary Action as Usual?
本文通过分析英国志愿行动的两篇里程碑式综述，质疑了志愿主义正面临国家与志愿组织关系剧变的说法，认为当前状况更像是过去关系的拼贴，并指出传统制度变迁理论不足以解释这种演变。
In this article, we analyze two landmark reviews of British voluntary action to cast a critical gaze on the recurrent claim that voluntarism is facing a new era of ever more turbulent welfare systems and dramatic changes in state–voluntary relations. Rather than representing a new era, we find the current climate may be more accurately considered a collage of past relations. By this, we mean a composition of reality that assembles different aspects of past realities to create a seemingly new era. This suggests that conventional discursive institutional accounts of policy change, which downplay the interrelated dynamics of stability and change, are inadequate for explaining the evolution of state–voluntary relations specifically and policy reform more broadly. Debates about public policy and the role to be played by voluntary action among scholarly and practitioner communities would be better served by greater understanding of the historical experience that has formed today’s institutions.