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88 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

Table 6.11 Partnership with the regional government according to characteristics of the NGO
Works with the local
government
Yes No Total
Characteristics Communitarian Count 66 86 152
of the NGO Row % 43.4% 56.6% 100.0%
Professional/technical Count 68 78 146
Row % 46.6% 53.4% 100.0%
Total Count 134 164 298
Row % 45.0% 55.0% 100.0%
Source: Sample survey 2004/2005.

knowledge for questions of efficiency and help us better tie together the many corners
justice alike. of the contemporary social world. To face
this challenge, we must move from abstract
theorizing to empirical research and vice-
versa in the high-speed mood typical of the
CONCLUDING REMARKS globalized world.

To conclude this chapter I insist that the
conceptual realignment of state, market, and
societal forces is, at the same time, the result NOTES
of the historical transformations which are
occurring, and an intellectual attempt to 1 Research for this work was possible thanks to a
confer meaning on the changes in question. joint grant from CNPQ and FAPERJ, respectively the
federal and the Rio de Janeiro state agencies for sci-
Thus, the agenda of sociology has to contem-
entific research.
plate the empirical processes at play and, 2 A forthcoming (2009) paper, in collaboration
at the same time, account for the changing with Mariane Koslinski, explores the possible impact
ways of conceiving society. As nation-states of transnational connections on NGOs. Contrary to
experience local and global pressures, the the usual assertion that foreign ties tend to make
NGOs in less-developed countries less domestically
quickly changing patterns of interaction
rooted, we show that external ties are closely associ-
among state, market, and civil society remain ated with more dense domestic networks. See M. C.
under-theorized. Although some draw atten- Koslinski and E. P. Reis, Transnational and Domestic
tion to a decline in associational forces Relations of NGOs in Brazil’.
(Putnam, 2000), there is plenty of evidence
that new participatory forces are at play,
forces that defy our old schemes of interpre-
tation. On the global scale, the explosion of REFERENCES
the so-called Third Sector, the growing
salience of the idea of corporate social Alexander, Jeffrey (ed.) (1998) Real Civil
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Anheier, Helmut and Themudo, Nuno (2002)
tional agencies are some of the indications
‘Organizational Forms of Global Civil Society:
of the changes at play. While distinctive,
Implications of Going Global’, Global Civil
these processes converge as expressions of a
Society Yearbook, Oxford: Oxford University
new way to conceive of social life. Each of
Press.
such manifestations has received consider- Axtmann, Roland (2004) ‘The State of the
able attention within sociology. However, we State: The Model of the Modern State and its
lack a broad theoretical framework that can