The Social Origins of the Nonprofit Sector and Charitable Giving

Abstract

How does the nature of a country’s government, and the relationship between the government and the nonprofit sector, affect individuals’ charitable giving? As other chapters focus on the political and economic determinants of the size and nature of the nonprofit sector, this chapter focuses on the historical development of the state and social welfare policy and the interaction between the state and the nonprofit sector. The first section of the chapter reviews Salamon and Anheier’s social origins theory and tests it on wealthy democratic countries using the data collected in the country chapters of this volume. The second section extends Salamon and Anheier’s theory and applies it to non-democratic and developing countries.