Can volunteering be political? – a brief review of literature
László Galambos
Abstract
This study discusses the conceptual definition of political volunteering and the theories explaining its motivations, primarily from a demand-supply perspective (mainly examining the supply side) where parties and political organizations represent the demand side, and individuals, i.e. potential volunteers, represent the supply side. It aims to serve as the theoretical background for an empirical research that assumes that political volunteering can be explained by individual motivations and available resources with few situational and structural reasons. The paper shows how the boundary between forms of social engagement is blurred, why traditional assistance can also become political activism, and how modern digital communication channels change and transform traditional forms of volunteering. The text presents two defining models. The first one is the Brady-Verba-Schlozman resource model, which considers the resources necessary for participation (money, time, and civic skills) from the supply side as the basis of political volunteerism. This approach emphasizes the role of non-political institutions (jobs, churches, and civil organizations) in socialization during the acquisition of democratic skills and political participation, but it also highlights how the lack of recruitment and the limitations by individual situations can lead to political inactivity. In contrast, the holistic S-theory aims to be a comprehensive action theory model that explains individual social and political engagement through the combined effects of biological, psychological, and environmental factors. However, since it examines the issue of volunteerism from the perspective of individuals (i.e. the supply side), it can also be discussed as a demand and supply approach.
Keywords: political volunteerism, activism, supply-demand, resource model, recruitment, biological, psychological, and environmental factors