Examining the history of social movements and non-state socio-political action, this volume shows how Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have proliferated in Britain since 1945, and how they have raised new political agendas, revived associational life, and arguably re-politicized generations disillusioned with the politics of the ballot box.

'The volume brings together fourteen excellent chapters by younger and more senior scholars, and this short review cannot do justice to the conceptual sophistication and empirical diversity of all its individual contributions. . . . This book is one of the very few edited collections in which the whole is more than its constituent parts. And it is an indication of the high quality and coherence of the volume's contributions that it provokes a series of questions that might lead to a more general debate about the key themes of contemporary British history.. In short, this book offers an extremely valuable compendium to a much neglected, yet extremely important part of contemporary British history and deserves a large readership.' Holger Nehring, Twentieth-Century British History

'This book seeks to rectify a relative neglect of socio-political action by historians. It does so through a series of appropriately selected and well executed case studies of particular organisations or movements. . . . This book raises as many questions as it answers, but that is a sign of strength rather than weakness and hopefully it will encourage further research in this area.' Wyn Grant, Contemporary British History

'This is the first book-length analysis of one of the key features of post-1945 Britain: the proliferation of NGOs. . . . As the cover illustration suggests, the idea that the British are apathetic about how the world is run is difficult to reconcile with the scale and diversity of this activity. Neither the current political claims about 'broken Britian', nor historical narratives about the welfare state largely ending the role of the voluntary sector should survive a reading of this book. . . . Overall, this is an innovative and informative collection, which lays the basis for much more work on the significance of these bodies for our understanding of democracy and its workings in modern Britain.' Jim Tomlinson, British Scholar

'NGOs in Contemporary Britain brings together a fascinating collection of case studies through which to contextualize changing understanding of what constitutes political activism. . . . As a collection [it] contains contributions that encompass the formal and informal, local and global, structured and voluntary, secular and religious, the everyday and the spectacular, reformist and more radicalized that together encompass the diversity of the term NGO, while managing not to lose all sense of the meaning of the term. It is a weight that the term appears largely able to bear.' Lucy Robinson, Economic History Review

Autorentext
MATT ANDERSON Doctoral Graduate, the University of Birmingham, UK CAITRIONA BEAUMONT Senior Lecturer in Social History, London South Bank University, UK LAWRENCE BLACK Senior Lecturer in Modern British History, Durham University, UK STEPHEN BROOKE Associate Professor of History, York University, Toronto, Canada TOM BUCHANAN Reader in Modern History, the University of Oxford, Department for Continuing Education, UK JODI BURKETT Doctoral Candidate, York University, Canada NICK CROWSON Reader in Contemporary British History, the University of Birmingham, UK TANYA EVANS Research Fellow at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia DARREN HALPIN Reader in the Department of Public Policy, The Robert Gordon University, UK MATTHEW HILTON Professor of Social History, the University of Birmingham, UK JAMES MCKAY Postdoctoral Research Fellow, the University of Birmingham, UK AUDRA MITCHELL Doctoral Candidate, the Queen's University of Belfast, UK ALEX MOLD Lecturer in History, the Centre for History in Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK CHRISTOPHER ROOTES Professor of Environmental Politics and Political Sociology, University of Kent, UK CLARE SAUNDERS Lecturer / RCUK Fellow in Politics, the University of Southampton, UK ROB SKINNER Department of Historical Studies, the University of Bristol, UK MATTHEW WAITES Lecturer in Sociology, the University of Glasgow, UK

Inhalt
Introduction; J.McKay & M.Hilton Peace: Direct Action and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 1958-62; J.Burkett International Aid and Development: British Humanitarian, Aid and Development NGOs, 1949-Present; C.Saunders Women: Housewives, Workers and Citizens: Voluntary Women's Organizations and the Campaign for Women's Rights in England and Wales during the Post-war Period; C.Beaumont Sexual Politics: The Sphere of Sexual Politics: the Abortion Law Reform Association, 1930s to 1960s; S.Brooke Gay Rights: Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual NGOs in Britain: Past, Present and Future; M.Waites Human Rights: Human Rights Campaigns in Modern Britain; T.Buchanan Anti-Apartheid: The Anti-Apartheid Movement: Pressure Group Politics, International Solidarity and Transnational Activism; R.Skinner Poverty: Stopping the Poor Getting Poorer: the Establishment and Professionalisation of Poverty NGOs, 1945-95; T.Evans Drugs: The Changing Role of NGOs in Britain: Voluntary Action and Illegal Drugs; A.Mold Reactionaries: There was Something About Mary: The National Viewers' and Listeners' Association and Social Movement History; L.Black Environmentalism: Environmental NGOs and the Environmental Movement in England; C.Rootes Fair Trade: NGOs and Fair trade: the Social Movement behind the Label; M.Anderson NGOs and the State: Transforming a Divided Civil Society? Governance, Conflict Transformation and NGOs in Northern Ireland, 1970-2006; A.Mitchell Democracy: NGOs and Democratisation: Assessing Variation in the Internal Democratic Practices of NGOs; D.Halpin