De tweeledige werking van intermediairen voor burgerparticipatie

The twofold functioning of intermediaries for the purpose of citizen participation; Research on the significance for citizenship of the support of volunteers by the Dutch association Humanitas. This book deals with the participation of citizens in citizenship practices. It is an attempt to contribute to the understanding of participation in terms of citizenship, by exploring research into the practice of the support of volunteers by the Dutch association Humanitas. The focus is on the interaction between citizens and the context in which participation takes place. With Bryan S. Turner, I assume that citizens, as one of the actors, through participation in practices give shape to citizenship practices, and in turn are themselves shaped by these practices. Participation is not an issue of citizens alone. It is constituted in the interaction between citizens and the other actors of citizenship practices (the context of participation). The support of volunteers by the Dutch association Humanitas is an intermediary between citizens and the context of their participation. Humanitas’ task is to counsel its volunteers while they carry out the social work of the association, and deal with the organisation of the social work, as well as with the organisation of the association’s local departments (the institutional embedding of the social work). In this research, the support of volunteers by the Dutch association Humanitas represents the operationalisation of the interaction between citizens and the context of participation. A better understanding of the signifi cance of the support for the participation of the different volunteers offers us insight into both the process of the interaction between the citizens and the context of participation, and the relevance of the process for citizen participation. Moreover, because this research is situated within the citizenship practice we call ‘Dutch society’, it indirectly gives insight into those characteristics of Dutch society which infl uence citizen participation.