The Political Embeddedness of Voluntary Action: The Case of Local Philanthropic COVID-19 Relief Funds

• Published date: 01 August 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231177217
• Author: Laurie E. Paarlberg,Jin Ai,Megan LePere-Schloop,Marlene Walk
• Date: 01 August 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231177217

Administration & Society

2023, Vol. 55(7) 1402 –1431

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997231177217

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Article

The Political

Embeddedness of

Voluntary Action:

The Case of Local

Philanthropic COVID-19

Relief Funds

Laurie E. Paarlberg1, Jin Ai1,

Megan LePere-Schloop2,

and Marlene Walk1

Abstract

Scholars and policymakers have long been interested in the complex

relationships between political institutions and voluntary collective action.

However, the reciprocal nature of their relationships complicates empirical

analysis: voluntary action supports democratic institutions and political

institutions enable voluntary action. This article examines the relationship

between political institutions and the activation of local voluntary action

in the context of COVID-19 funds managed by community philanthropic

organizations. We find that political engagement, policy signaling, and political

competition all support the emergence of a COVID-19 fund. The findings

advance our understanding of the significant role that political institutions

play in activating voluntary action.

Keywords

voluntary action, philanthropy, government institutions, COVID-19, political

theory

1Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, USA

2The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA

Corresponding Author:

Laurie E. Paarlberg, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University Purdue University

Indianapolis, 301 University Blvd, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA.

Email: lpaarlbe@indiana.edu

1177217AAS0010.1177/00953997231177217Administration & SocietyPaarlberg et al.

research-article2023

Paarlberg et al. 1403

Introduction

The relationship between voluntary collective action and political institutions

is a matter of both theoretical and practical significance. While economic

theory foregrounds government, viewing voluntary action such as nonprofit

provision of public goods and services as a response to government failure

(Weisbrod, 1977), political theory presents a more complex story. Since

Tocqueville’s early description of associational life in the United States,

political theorists have argued that strong democratic political institutions

both emerge from and sustain rich voluntary associational life (Paxton, 2002).

In other words, strong associational life and various forms of voluntary action

bolster political institutions (Cuthill & Fien, 2005; Paxton, 2002) and healthy

democratic institutions support voluntary action (Andrews, 2012; Skocpol

et al., 2000) in a virtuous cycle.

This theorized reciprocity makes it difficult to study the relationship between

voluntary action and political institutions. Disasters, as strategic research sites,

provide opportunities to test these theories (Merton, 1987; Stinchcombe, 2005)

as they shed light on how preexisting institutions influence the emergence of

specific forms of voluntary action (Dutta, 2017). While most disasters are geo-

graphically isolated events, COVID-19 simultaneously affected communities

around the world, allowing for a rich comparison across place.

In this paper, we leverage the COVID-19 context to address the research

question: what is the relationship between political institutions and voluntary

action? We argue that voluntary action is not merely a substitute or response

to government (in)action. Rather, voluntary action is embedded in local polit-

ical institutions. At the most basic level, government facilitates voluntary

action in that nonprofits and private foundations are legally constituted by

government policies and agencies (Clemens, 2020). However, other, less

apparent, political factors shape voluntary action including local government

capacity and policy, residents’ propensity to engage with government, resi-

dents’ political ideology, and local political competition. We test our hypoth-

eses using data on the emergence of COVID-19 philanthropic funds hosted

by local community philanthropic organizations (CPOs) during the first quar-

ter of the pandemic. The emergence of COVID-19 funds activated voluntary

action by allowing local individuals and organizations to pool their private

contributions to address community needs. We find that while voluntary

action in time of disaster may address problems in the short-term, the capac-

ity and willingness to take voluntary action is rooted in local political institu-

tions, which may affect the resilience of communities in the long-term.

Leveraging the COVID-19 context, our paper makes both theoretical and

practical contributions. While theories of government failure and sector