Organized Civic Benevolence and Nationhood

Santi Furnari (CASBS fellow, 2023-24) engages renowned political sociologist & 2015-16 fellow Elisabeth Clemens on the role of private civic volunteer organizations in co-constructing national identity and state capacity as well as serving as tools of governance, solidarity, and inclusion for much of American history. In what form does civic benevolence and philanthropy operate in the contemporary landscape? This absorbing conversation draws inspiration from the multi-award-winning book "Civic Gifts," much of which Clemens wrote during her CASBS year.

ELISABETH CLEMENS: Univ. of Chicago faculty page | Clemens wins 2023 Gordon J. Laing Award | on Wikipedia |

The book is Civic Gifts: Voluntarism and the Making of the American Nation-State (Univ. of Chicago Press), winner of the Barrington Moore Book Award, Comparative and Historical Sociology section, American Sociological Association;  the University of Chicago Press Gordon J. Laing Award; the Outstanding Published Book Award, ASA Section on Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity; and the Peter Dobkin Hall History of Philanthropy Prize, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA).

SANTI FURNARI: CASBS page |  City University of London, Bayes School of Business faculty page | on Google Scholar |

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

Explore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreach​

Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |