One of the stock assumptions that inhabits our understanding of the history of 19th- and early 20th-century immigration to an industrializing America is the wretchedness of the new immigrant laborers. The waves of new Americans from impoverished rural zones of emigration that swept into the nation were thought to be simple, rural people of limited skill for an advanced economy, unschooled in the norms of civic life, ignorant of democratic processes. Oscar Handlin was the original architect of this view; he saw the new ethnic groups as unsophisticated pre-moderns, and, as "peasants, they had not the background or skills to make their way in the economy of the New World." Whatever progress the new ethnic groups achieved in cultural and civic matters was attributable to learning and adapting to American influence, a process of assimilation that instilled social discipline in personal and public life and an appreciation for American democracy. This study challenges this assumption and relocates the locus of investigation overseas, to transnational sources of civic life in the pre-emigration lands of Ireland and South/Central Italy to explain the rapid rise and proliferation of ethnic voluntary associations in the late 1800s, early 1900s. The empirical universe is the Irish and Italians of Philadelphia; the time frame is 1880-1920, and the social site of investigation and analysis is the vibrant community life of ethnic voluntary associations the Irish and Italians constructed. This study also challenges a reading of the Irish associations in Philadelphia as little more than neighborhood clubs peopled by an aspiring upper strata of the Irish American community reaching for bourgeois values. This work suggests that the associations were populated by the working class, many born in Ireland, that substituted an ethic of solidarity for individual achievement values, a communal opposition to symbols of past oppression and agents of privilege. The Irish Americans of Philadelphia had cultural advantages prior to emigration, and they capitalized on this stock of common knowledge absorbed in native Ireland to transfer the norms, methods and moral codes of behavior from the Irish Friendly Society to the Irish American Beneficial Association of Philadelphia. However closely the Irish of Philadelphia followed the original transatlantic model, they ultimately molded their own style of ethnic association that elevated humanitarian communal values and constructed their civic life on a scaffolding of stable financial reasoning backed by a solid group discipline. The region of Abruzzo in South/Central Italy sent a disproportionate share of its rural people to Philadelphia in a massive chain migration that formed the Italian colony of South Philadelphia in the early 1900s. The Abruzzesse were a mountainous people defined by their rocky hilltop topography and a hard heritage derived from eking out an existence working rocky soil or shepherding; this was a mobile population cultured in the tradition of seasonal migration within Europe as the small farmers and rural laborers often spent months away from home in search of work to support their family and home. The rural proletariat of Abruzzo that eventually settled in Philadelphia also arrived with a rich civic heritage firmly intact, and the Italians capitalized on their knowledge and experience of an advanced civic culture based in local mutual aid to establish beneficial associations in Italian Philadelphia. In the process of following transatlantic models and in creating their own life, these ethnic groups constructed a collective consciousness mediated through the immediate community and educational mission of the ethnic associations. For the Irish, the association became the protective institution for a world view that defined Irish identity within the Diaspora as a community of exiles torn from cherished rural locations, a people bent on maintaining a vigilant eye on enemies such as the occupying British state in Ireland, on Irish landlordism and anti-Catholic agents in America, ever supportive of Irish nationalism. This consciousness grafted all kinds of imaginary symbols to its base, including race, a Social Darwinistic rendering of the Celtic type as superior to the Anglo Saxon, and a matrix of factors that conflated social class, nationalism, and sentimental remembrance into a hard opposition leveled at all forms of illegitimate privilege. The Italians were a mobile people of the mountains loyal to family and land, schooled in the rigors of migration, backed by the civic institutions of self-help they constructed in their agricultural towns; they were not burdened by the weight of sentimental nationalism as the Irish were in their Diaspora. Yet, during Italy's time of crisis during World War I, the Italian Americans of Philadelphia awakened national leanings and constructed a movement of national support for failing Italy. The Italian American associations of South Philadelphia came alive to sponsor financial and moral support for Italy at war, and a renewed Italian imperialism in the immediate post-war years. Thus, as the Irish and Italians drew on their old-world methods to create new civic institutions in Philadelphia, they also constructed separate ethnic identities and an active community, a vibrant energy that made industrial Philadelphia the home of the American voluntary association. / History

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The diploma thesis is devoted to the process of public involvement in urban renewal projects. Based on available citizen participation and social movement theoretical concepts I analyze three cases of local civic associations' engagement in Prague municipal districts urban renewal projects. In case studies I describe thoroughly three selected cases and analyze the public involvement process, both by municipal authorities and local civic associations. The emphasis is on uniqueness of these specific cases, although even comparison of the cases based on preselected criteria is presented. Last but not least I made analysis of involved local civic associations. KEY WORDS Urban planning, citizen participation, local civic associations

Nonprofit organizations have become a necessary staple in the lives of people and communities experiencing poverty. Many of these organizations provide services that they think their communities need. The solutions and services these organizations provide are incumbent on what the organizations think causes poverty. Although the motivations behind these organizations have good intentions, their approach to poverty could further jeopardize people and communities by not providing proper or necessary services that have the ability to help people get out of poverty. To explore how organizational values and perspectives on poverty are operationalized, I examined one nonprofit grassroots organization in Tampa Heights, Tampa, Florida. I applied the following four theories of poverty: individual, cultural, political-economic, and geographic to explain how participants discussed poverty in Tampa Heights. Interviews revealed that while many participants subscribed to multiple theories of poverty, each participant held one dominant view. This finding, among others, exposed the complexities of how individuals understand poverty as well as how nonprofit organizations approach these multifaceted issues. Thus, indicating the need for a clearer explanation of how and why people use these theories or combinations of theories to explain both causes and solutions to poverty.

The first three sections are devoted to the theory work. It focuses mainly on the legislation that governs the public's right to environmental information and participation in decisions on matters relating to the environment. Important international document in this field is Aarhus Convention (i.e. Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters). The work also deals with the Czech legal standards that follow this convention. Other parts of the thesis have focused specifically on civic associations, particularly on how they occur, what their possibilities to participate in decision-making processes and what their rights and obligations. The work deals with the activity of selected civic associations in Prague. Focusing only on Prague is due to better availability. I mention here how many civic associations are registered in Prague, that are involved in decision-making and if so, what kind of environment have the greatest interest. Also, I try to show what results in administrative management achieve and how values its cooperation with authorities.

The subject of this Master's thesis is an accounting and a funding of non-profit organizations with a main focus on civic associations. The theoretical part defines both the nonprofit sector's main features and the characteristics of civic associations, its legislation including. The practical part is devoted to civic association called "Junák - Association of Scouts in the Czech Republic". The main focus is on its management in the period of 2007 - 2011 and on the relationship of the Junák's headquarters toward his subordinate organizational units.

This thesis deals with the non-profit organizations with a particular focus on the civic associations. It consists of a theoretical and practical part. There are characterized the non-profit organizations in the theoretical part, their position in the Czech Republic. They are also compared with some countries of the European Union. The main part describes the civic associations, the ways of their financing, accounting and audit. The practical part is focused on the analysis of the economic results in Mateřské centrum Kapřík and Mateřské centrum Pampeliška. There are shortly compared with each other at the end of the work.

This diploma thesis is analyzing civic associations that conduct a social enterprise in Prague. The aim of the paper is to discover, in which measure do the specific associations fulfill economical and social conditions according to the methodology EMES, which represents characteristics for an "optimal social enterprise". Firstly, the thesis examines the idea of the social economics and social entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic as well as in Europe. It focuses on the research network EMES of professor Jacques Defourny, and on the legal and economical activity of the civic associations. The methodological part of the paper analysis examples of the specific civic associations through the methodology EMES. For each association, economic and social conditions, based on methodic EMES, are examined through the document analysis method and semi-structured interviews. The output of this thesis are recommendations, that could improve the success rate of the Czech civic associations in an important manner. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

For over a century, Moneta, a small unincorporated village in rural central Virginia, served as the center of commercial, civic and religious life for the families who lived on a number of area farms. The construction of nearby Smith Mountain Lake in the mid-20th century brought an influx of newcomers to Moneta—a change that has not always been welcomed by longtime residents of the village and its environs. This thesis explores how the concept of community has been affected by the infusion of new people and new ideas into Moneta's existing civic, religious and political life. After interviewing civic, religious and political leaders in the Moneta area, the author concludes that rather than ending community in Moneta, real estate development and the concomitant migration of newcomers to Smith Mountain Lake has actually had a transformative impact on community in Moneta. Instead of a broader community based on traditional connectors such as kinship and/or shared history, values and experiences, community in contemporary Moneta is narrower, based upon shared common interests, allowing for the creation of a number of smaller communities within the same geographical area. The author concludes with a discussion on the effects such transformations—occurring nationwide as suburbanization accelerates—are having on American democracy. / Master of Arts

The paper examines the performance of a local ('tribal') authority which existed in the Keiskammahoek district up to 1993 and accounts for the rise of civic organisations which challenged tribal authorities virtually everywhere in the former Ciskei. It suggests that the problems of this local authority which included inefficiency, corruption and lack of democracy were manifestations of the limitations of the Black Authorities Act of 1951 which attempted to revive traditional authority in the rural areas in south Africa even though this was incompatible with political developments in many other African states, particularly in a period during which the process of decolonisation was at its peak. / Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)