Premium
Leveraging Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Research to Inform Public Policy
Author(s) -
Bushouse Brenda K.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
policy studies journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.773
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1541-0072
pISSN - 0190-292X
DOI - 10.1111/psj.12195
Subject(s) - public policy , public relations , government (linguistics) , voluntary action , political science , action (physics) , field (mathematics) , public administration , process (computing) , research policy , nonprofit organization , sociology , social science , agency (philosophy) , law , physics , quantum mechanics , philosophy , linguistics , mathematics , computer science , pure mathematics , operating system
The field of nonprofit and voluntary action (NVA) studies in the United States originates in the 1970s and has since grown to encompass multiple scholarly associations around the world and graduate degree programs producing faculty with NVA as their primary scholarly focus. This article introduces readers to the NVA field by describing the development of the field, its scholarly associations and publication venues, and education programs. The second section discusses three areas of foundational research: why nonprofit organizations exist, why people give, and nonprofit relations with government. Each of these areas can be drawn upon by public policy scholars to more fully understand how individuals and nonprofit organizations participate in the policy process. The final section identifies three nexuses with policy process: policy design, advocacy, and the role of foundations. These are three areas that have significant potential for research collaborations to connect NVA with policy process literature.