The market, the state and the third sector have all been heralded as central agents in civilizing modern societies. It has been claimed that participation in voluntary associations enables people to learn civic skills and, in effect, to become more "civilized". Likewise, there are claims about the civilizing effects of doux commerce, the ability of trade and commerce to mitigate conflicts and convert them into peaceful competition. And according to many political and legal theories, democratic states and their institutions are the final bulwark of civil virtues. However, the voluntary sector can be a source of particularism; the market of exploitation; the state of oppression. This book, which brings together authors from across Europe, argues that such sector perspectives should be left aside and examines how the civicness and civility of organisations and individuals can be identified and encouraged in any institutional setting. Crossing traditional spheres and disciplines, we explore the concept of "civicness" to search for the source of our modern civil society. The publication is a result of the European Network of Excellence CINEFOGO (Civil society and New Forms of Governance).

The article is based on research in the region of Heidelberg—the city itself and two small municipalities nearby. It addresses three dimensions of local support movements for refugees: (1) the varying bundles of motives among those engaged, (2) the diversity of organizations concerned and (3) their interaction with the local political administration. A focal point of the study concerns features and processes that give actions and organizations a more or less political character. Our results reveal that, especially among newly engaged helpers and activists, political and apolitical motives coexist. Many people and their local organizations take positions in the country-wide controversial political debates on refugees, but for their practical action on location, moral concerns clearly prevail. Processes of politicization and depoliticization of refugee support largely depend on the ways and degrees to which nationwide political controversies and local developments intermesh. Politicization may take place due to controversies that call for more than a moral attitude, have an impact and build up at the local level. However, resistance to supportive action, be it by changing discourses or the persistence of traditional administrative routines, may also cause depoliticization, where volunteers and initiatives restrict themselves to acting as mere helpers that bring some human touch into an environment that longs to return to normality.

In Germany, like in other countries, the notions of volunteering and civic action altogether describe a wide diversity of activities. Often, this wide spectre is put together under ‘civic engagement’, reaching from civic action that is sometimes overtly ‘political’ over to engagement as volunteering in areas like sports or culture. Yet in academic contributions that use such a wide concept, nothing much can be found about a convincing differentiation of the diverse forms of engagement that figure under such a wide cover. Is there a clear line separating voluntary and civic action? In line with the introduction to this special issue, the paper takes up these questions by proposing that a proper understanding of differentiations in the wide field of civic engagement calls for a historical approach that gives a key role to discourses and politics. Looking from such a perspective at historical constellations in German history, four decisive historical concepts get sketched. It shows that kinds of differentiation between voluntary and civic action are very much dependent on discourses and politics and not only the repercussions of socio-economic and cultural changes and megatrends. The kind of approach chosen shows as well that older concepts, notions and attitudes do not simply melt away in the light of new ones. The label ‘civic engagement’ appears as an umbrella notion in front of a diversity of forms and understandings of engagement. Understanding this diversity calls for tracing the historical roots, notably the ordering imaginaries and strategies wherein these forms and understandings took shape and function today.

It’s time to question the capability of the liberal-democratic political system in contemporary societies to handle urgent crises and represent the political will of the citizens. The current erosion and retrieval of intermediate capabilities and procedures in society affects the interplay of civic engagement and institutionalised politics, undermining the vitality of the political system and the legitimacy of democracy. The aim of this book is to contribute to the discussion and understanding of these changes in European countries. The first part of this introduction defines roughly what we mean by institutionalised politics and civic engagement respectively and how we understand intermediation: as a special dimension of their interplay that is not a given but a kind of always contentious and endangered quality. The second part discusses three different strands of (re)thinking the intermediary capacities of democratic systems—political and democratic theory, the civil society/civic engagement and the recent governance debate. They make up for plurality of the respective chapters, their specific limits, merits and innovative potentials. As the book is looking to unfold the mechanisms for democratic repair beyond a ‘bipolar’ antagonism between civic engagement and institutionalised politics, they can altogether be seen as complementary.