Municipal Government-Nonprofit Sector Collaboration in Bulgaria

• Published date: 01 March 2001
• Date: 01 March 2001
• Author: Uday Desai,Keith Snavely
• DOI: 10.1177/02750740122064839
• Subject Matter: Articles

ARPA/March2001Snavely,Desai/COLLABORATIONINBULGARIA

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT–

NONPROFIT SECTOR

COLLABORATION IN BULGARIA

An Attitudinal Analysis

KEITH SNAVELY

UDAY DESAI

Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

The worldwide phenomenon of devolutionof power to local governments and growth of community non-

profitorganizations increases opportunities for municipal government–nonprofit sector collaboration.

Successful collaboration between the two institutions is seen as a promisingtrend because it stimulates

development of a healthy civil society and delivery of a broader array of social services. This article

presents an analysis of survey data that measured attitudes of Bulgarian municipal officials toward

municipal- nonprofitcollaboration. Municipal officials’ orientation toward working cooperatively with

nonprofit organizations is critical to success. The surveydata indicate that Bulgarian municipal offi-

cials are supportive of the general notion of municipal-nonprofitcollaboration, but they retain serious

reservationsabout the capacity of community nonprofit organizations to contribute meaningfully to ser-

vice delivery in cooperation with local government. They perceivefinancial and human resource con-

straintswithin the nonprofit sector as well as within their own structures, thus making successful collab-

oration and its benefits problematic.

During the past decade, East European nations have investedimportant legal and

political resources into the process of decentralization and devolution of powers

and responsibilities to local governments (Baldersheim, 1996; Coulson, 1995;

Gibson & Hanson, 1996). Extensive reform took place in Hungary, for example,

where local governments were granted newfiscal powers to tax; responsibility was

transferred for health, housing, education, and other services; and authority was

granted over privatization of state powers (Fabian & Straussman, 1994; Peteri,

1993). The Local Self-Government Act of 1990 in Poland granted fiscal powers to

Polish municipalities similar to those awarded to Hungarian cities (Wieslaw &

Taebel, 1994). In 1999, Poland enacted further decentralization by creating a

three-tiered system of subnational government: gmina (municipality), powiat

(county), and voivodship (region) (Wozniak, 1998).

East European nations have also established legal, financial,and organizational

conditions conducive to growth of the nonprofit sector (Les, 1994; Siegel &

Initial Submission: June 6, 1999

Accepted: May 9, 2000

AMERICAN REVIEW OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION,Vol. 31 No. 1, March 2001 49-65

© 2001 Sage Publications, Inc.

49

Yancey, 1992). All across the region, countries updated existinglaws or wrote new

laws on foundations and associations, including legislation that givesfavorable tax

treatment to nonprofit organizations. Everywhere, nonprofits have become estab-

lished and have grownin number. Tiny,poor, and strife-torn Albania reports having

approximately 350 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (Albanian Civil Soci-

ety Foundation, 1999), whereas its Balkan neighbor, Bulgaria, by 1997 had some

7,574 registered NGOs (Nikolov,1999, p. 228). The Regional Environmental Cen-

ter’s most recent directory contains information on 2,749 environmental NGOs in

15 Central and East European countries (Gjias, 1997). A perusal of NGONET, a

Web site maintained by Freedom House (http://www.ngonet.org), conveysa sense

of the scope of the nonprofit sector in Eastern Europe. There is an extensive list of

links to individual nonprofitsand to databases storing information on organizations

throughout the region.

Although much attention has been given separately to each of these two societal

developments,less has been devoted to potential construction of mutually strength-

ening relationships between the more authoritative, responsible local governments

and the rapidly growing nonprofit sector.For a healthy civil society, and for provi-

sion of essential social services to the poor and vulnerable who are left underserved

due to difficult financial conditions of local and central state governments, a con-

structive and dynamic relationship between local governmentsand nonprofit orga-

nizations is vital.

Civil society is understood to be that space between government and the institu-

tions of the national and international economy that is reserved for private expres-

sion and intimate interactions (Cohen & Arato, 1992). This civic space is composed

of individuals, families, and the organizations people create and govern for pur-

poses of self-expression, pursuit of mutual interests, political action, and commu-

nity service. Local governments and nonprofit organizations can interact in such a

way as to sustain and broaden civil society. By working collaboratively, govern-

ment and nonprofit organizationsprovide citizens with the opportunity to influence

policy development; craft effective, responsive public services; and contribute to

implementation of services.

This positive,productive vision of government-nonprofit relations has been well

articulated by Lester Salamon and others (Gidron, Kramer, & Salamon, 1992;

Kramer, Lorentzen, Melief, & Pasquinelli, 1993; Salamon, 1987). Instead of the

expanding welfare state overwhelming the nonprofit sector, states stimulate non-

profit development. States provide needed revenues for nonprofits, and they, in

turn, assist the development and delivery of social welfare services. Based on a

22-nation study, Salamon (1999) concludes that government stimulus of the non-

profit sector is a universal phenomenon. He observes that “the single most impor-

tant determinant of the size of the nonprofit sector around the world turns out to be

the extent of government support for it” (p. 337).

Collaboration between government and the nonprofit sector stimulates creation

of citizen-led organizations of civil society. Citizens are enabled to put their cre-

ativeenergies to use in addressing community needs through the organizations they

50 ARPA / March 2001