Why do some places have much more participation in organizations that have close, embedded relationships with the government, whereas other places that may have equally high participation rates favor organizations with more distant relationships with the government? Further, why do some communities, even when compared to similarly situated communities in the same country, have much higher rates of volunteering? To address these two questions, this chapter develops a theory of volunteer participation that explains both the types of volunteer participation as well as the rates of participation found in a community.

The theory, in a nutshell, posits that volunteer participation in a community is a function of that community's norms of civic responsibility. Such norms are formed by the ideas that citizens have of governmental and individual responsibility for dealing with social problems and the practices of governmental and social institutions that support or inhibit volunteer organizations. The ideas citizens have of governmental and individual responsibility inform the content of a community's norms of civic responsibility, suggesting which types of organizations are prevalent in a community. The practices of governmental and social institutions affect the strength of those norms, thereby influencing community participation rates.

My theory of volunteer participation departs from other theories explaining volunteer participation in three fundamental ways. First, in utilizing a state-in-society approach I assume that both society and the state are integral to the development of civil society and civic participation; I specify the ways that each side interacts with the other to encourage or discourage volunteer participation.