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Inequalities of Power: Cross-Sector Partnerships

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Small Voluntary Organisations in the 'Age of Austerity'

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Abstract

This chapter examines how neoliberal orthodoxy affects the cross-sector partnerships in which the two grassroots organisations engaged in order to gain external resources. Powerful organisations can affect the way grassroots organisations develop by exchanging resources for some control over development and also by their “weight” in the field. I conclude that the leaders, with a “practical sense” of the terms of reference of the field, understood that they were engaged in market exchanges and negotiated to gain valued resources. Where volunteers have a strong commitment to a cohesive central mission (the specific logic of grassroots organisations), this can counterbalance the unilateral action of leaders and prevent damaging and possibly fatal development.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The concept of the domain, as a demarcated and unified social space is not tightly defined by Bourdieu. For Bourdieu, what are considered to be domains (which, confusingly, Bourdieu also calls “fields”) depends on the nature of the social phenomena being investigated (Bourdieu 2001b, p. 66).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business, University of Greenwich, London, UK

    Pauline McGovern

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  1. Pauline McGovern
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McGovern, P. (2017). Inequalities of Power: Cross-Sector Partnerships. In: Small Voluntary Organisations in the 'Age of Austerity'. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52188-0_5

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