A Survey of Voluntaristics: Research on the Growth of the Global, Interdisciplinary, Socio-behavioral Science Field and Emergent Inter-discipline

The author founded the organized, global, interdisciplinary, socio-behavioral science field of voluntaristics (a 2013 neologism by the author) in 1971, with his formation and establishment of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (arnova; www.arnova.org; Smith , ). Both arnova, and its outstanding, interdisciplinary academic journal, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (nvsq), have served as initial models for the global diffusion of this interdisciplinary field, now present in all inhabited continents and with upwards of 20,000 academic participants in at least 130 nations and territories, and likely more (Smith ; Smith and Sundblom ). Voluntaristics, although clearly a young discipline, has developed out of nonprofit and voluntary sector studies, philanthropy studies, civil society studies, third sector studies, nonprofit management studies, social and solidarity economy studies, social movement studies, cooperatives research, self-help/mutual aid group studies, and related fields that have emerged since 1970. After more than four decades of expansion, voluntaristics now qualifies as a new, global, integrative academic discipline in the socio-behavioral sciences and related social professions, not just as one of many interdisciplinary fields of research, according to six defining criteria for a discipline. However, the author prefers to label voluntaristics as an inter-discipline (another neologism), since its hallmark is the interdisciplinary study of all, voluntary nonprofit sector (vnps) phenomena. Such vnps phenomena range from individual voluntary actions and roles, through all kinds of nonprofit groups and organizations (including voluntary associations, nonprofit or voluntary agencies, philanthropic foundations, volunteer service programs), to social movements, revolutions, and the entire vnps and its relationships to the government, business, and household/family sectors. For the first time, this survey article summarizes research on the development and institutionalization of voluntaristics, using the latter as one word to refer to the global, interdisciplinary field and emerging academic discipline focused on the study of voluntary action, the vnps, third sector, charitable/charity sector, philanthropy and giving, civil society, civil society sector, nonprofit organizations (npos), nongovernmental organizations (ngo), nonprofit agencies, associations, volunteer service programs, foundations, social enterprises, social entrepreneurship, altruism, morality, mutual aid and self-help, cooperatives, social movements, social protest and dissent, social solidarity, the solidarity economy, and the social economy. Various journal articles regarding such growth have been published recently, and this article draws on these and other, original data gathered by the author and colleagues. Issues/topics examined in Part One of this article include the following: Part Two of the article discusses application of voluntaristics knowledge by practitioners and policy-makers, trends in research and theory, the formation of an arnova Common Interest Group on Voluntaristics, 46 hypotheses about the causes of the recent exponential growth of voluntaristics, other needed research, and the possible futures of voluntaristics as a global, academic discipline or inter-discipline. In an insightful and influential book entitled Chaos of Disciplines, Abbott () argues that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for any new academic discipline to emerge and enter into the canonical set of current socio-behavioral sciences, as existent now for about the past 100 years in the usa and to a lesser extent elsewhere. In this article, by contrast, I contend that one or more powerful, validated, and integrative, multi-disciplinary theories of behavior may bring about such inclusion of voluntaristics as an accepted, new, integrative, socio-behavioral science, academic discipline or inter-discipline. My new S-Theory (Synanthrometics; Smith , , 2016b) is one such theory. An additional, integrative theory of voluntaristics organizations, groups, collectivities, and networks would further assist this process. Two Appendices present valuable, auxiliary information: