The present issue of Voluntaristics Review (VR), Vol. 3, No. 2, raises a very general concern regarding national, multinational, and standard terminology in our global field and emergent academic discipline of voluntaristics (cf., Smith, 2013, 2016, 2018), as research on the nonprofit sector and voluntary action, with a variety of names or labels for the field (Smith, 2016, pp. 5â8). For more than 50 years, beginning with Cornuelle (1965, pp. 26â27), who invented the terms third sector and independent sector, there have been many competing labels for the nonprofit sector (NPS) of society we study (Smith, Stebbins, & Dover, 2006, p. 159), and also for the larger interdisciplinary field of scholarship focused on NPS phenomena.
As I argued in Smith (2016, pp. 5â9), the dozens of (usually) multi-word names/labels for our field can best be replaced by the single word name, voluntaristics, analogous to the name linguistics, referring to the academic and comparative analytical study of all human languages, past and present. Voluntaristics is far more neutral, as a neologism, and also more meaningful than the few alternative single-word names for our fieldâphilanthropy, philanthropics, charity, nonprofits, and altruistics (Smith, 2013).
In Smith (2016, pp. 52â53), I stated,
The object of study of the emerging academic discipline of voluntaristics is the range of individual and collective human phenomena at various levels of analysis that involve relatively non-coerced, free-will decisions and behaviors, based on values and belief systems which usually involve some aspects of altruism, morality, or other higher (i.e. non-financial) values in the eyes of the participants, whether groups or individuals (see Rothschild and Milofsky, 2006). Voluntaristics phenomena mainly involve normative-voluntary compliance structures, not mainly remunerative or coercive compliance structures, using terminology of Etzioni (1975). Hence, voluntaristics examines those aspects of any society which usually are relatively distinct (a) from families/households, where kinship and close personal relationships dominate exchanges and activities, and communal sharing is the norm; (b) from the market system of exchanges, where market pricing of scarce resources is the norm (business and commercial activities seeking to maximize profits and financial resources), and (c) from the coercive system of exchanges and activities that characterize governments at all territorial levels, where the physical control/dominance of government and government representatives, agencies, and laws/rules control events and activitiesâ¦.
French Associations Refers to Nonprofit Organizations in General
The present issue, VR 3.2, however, clearly raises the concern of how to refer to or name the groups or organizations of the NPS in any society. There is some rough global consensus on the term nonprofit organizations or NPOs as the most general label or name for all types of groups and organizations in the NPS in any society or country at any time in human history.1 In the current VR 3.2 issue, the French word associations is said to refer to all types of NPO, and hence in a sense to be the current French translation of the global term nonprofit organizations. This creates some confusion, even among French academics. As the present issue authors, Nirello and Prouteau, take pains to point out, the French word associations refers not only to voluntary or membership associations, as in English (and Spanish), but also refers to paid staff voluntary agencies (VOLAGS; which can be called nonprofit agencies; Smith, 2015a, 2015b) and any other types of French NPOs. The historical root of this situation was the French 1901 Act on âcontracts of association,â which has also been repeated in other French-speaking countries.
One key concept needed to make analytical sense of this linguistic situation is the distinction between a common language (or natural language) and technical terminology (technical or scientific language) related to a specific common language. A common language is defined roughly as the language spoken by most normally socialized adults raised in a country or linguistic region. By contrast, technical terminology refers to the set of special words and phrases used mainly or solely by scientists or other academic scholars or professionals in the pursuit of their science, scholarship, or profession in a country or linguistic region. Making use of the above distinction in the current instance of the French term association(s), we can clarify as follows:
In French, as the current common language in France, the word associations since about 1901 has referred to various analytical types of NPO, including both voluntary/membership associations and also voluntary/nonprofit agencies.
Considering broader, multi-national, but non-French-speaking countries and regions, the French common language term associations is similar to the more global technical term nonprofit organizations/NPOs, but not similar to the more global technical term associations, or voluntary/membership/nonprofit associations. (Smith, Stebbins, & Dover, 2006, pp. 23, 142, 155, 239)
Similar Linguistic Problem in another Country and Linguistic Region: China
In another world linguistic and cultural region, China, a similar problem arises regarding the term non-governmental organization (NGO), a technical term as expressed in Chinese. The preferred global definition of NGO by Smith, Stebbins, & Dover (2006, p. 154) is as follows:
1. Nonprofit group, particularly a nonprofit organization or association whose classification emphasizes the nongovernmental character of nonprofits.
Salamon & Anheier 1992, p. 129
By contrast, in Chinese, when academics write about NPOs as defined above, they often use the term NGO, when in fact at the higher territorial levels all NPOs are in fact monitored and/or controlled by the government (party-state), hence are not nongovernmental (Smith with Zhao, 2016).
General Problem of Terminological Standardization in Voluntaristics
Voluntaristics as an organized scholarly field is rather young, dating back to the initial formation of ARNOVA (www.arnova.org) in 1971 (Smith, 2003). This interdisciplinary field has recently become a new academic discipline in its own right, according to six objective criteria of a discipline discussed by the author in Smith (2016, pp. 52â54). The first comprehensive dictionary of nonprofit terms and concepts was only published by the author and colleagues in 2006 (Smith, Stebbins, & Dover). As a result, this emergent global discipline is still in the early stages of terminological development, particularly standardization of key terms. This journal seeks to be part of the process of terminological standardization in voluntaristics, as evidenced by the present Editorâs Introduction and by consistency in use of voluntaristics terminology in VR issues.
References
Cornuelle, R. C. (1965). Reclaiming the American dream. New York: Vintage Books, Random House.
Etzioni, A. (1975). A comparative analysis of complex organizations, rev. edn. New York: The Free Press, Simon & Schuster.
Rothschild, J. & Milofsky, C. (2006). The centrality of values, passions, and ethics in the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 17(2), 137â143.
Salamon, L. M. & Anheier, H. K. (1992). In search of the non-profit sector. I: The question of definitions. Voluntas, 3(2), 125â151.
Smith, D. H. (2003). A history of ARNOVA. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32(3), 458â472.
Smith, D. H. (2013). Growth of research associations and journals in the emerging discipline of altruistics. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42(4), 638â656.
Smith D. H. (2015a), Sociology of voluntary associations. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences, 2nd edn. Amsterdam: Elsevier, vol. 25, pp. 252â260.
Smith D. H. (2015b), Voluntary organizations. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences, 2nd edn. Amsterdam: Elsevier, vol. 25, pp. 261â267.
Smith, D. H. (2016). A survey of voluntaristics: Research on the growth of the global, interdisciplinary, socio-behavioral science field and emergent inter-discipline. Voluntaristics Review: Brill Research Perspectives, 1(2), 1â81.
Smith, D. H. (2018, in press). Voluntaristics. In T. Davies (Ed.), Routledge handbook of NGOs and international relations (Chapter 15). London: Routledge.
Smith, D. H., Stebbins, R. A., & Dover, M. (2006). A dictionary of nonprofit terms and concepts. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. [Chinese edition, translation by Prof. Xinye Wu, Beijing, China: Peking University Press, 2017.]
Smith, D. H. with Zhao, T. (2016). Review and assessment of Chinaâs nonprofit sector after Mao: Emerging civil society? Leiden, and Boston, MA, Brill.
Smith, Stebbins, & Dover (2006, pp. 156â157) are virtually alone in arguing that nonprofit group is the more appropriate general term, because it includes both informal and formal groups, reserving the term organization for formalized nonprofit groups.