CULTIVATING PEACE: SOCIAL MOVEMENT PROFESSIONALIZATION AND NGOIZATION IN CROATIA*
Scholars studying social movements and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have noted a rapid expansion in the number of professional organizations dedicated to creating social change. This study uses the case of the peacebuilding sector in Croatia (1991–present) to examine central questions in both fields: where professional organizations come from, what drives professionalization, and what the consequences of professionalization are for the work of social change. I find there are actually many paths to NGO creation, and identify five types of NGOs: transformed, new, bud, seed, and clone. These five types of organizations had different paths for development, have different levels of professionalization, and engage in different types of work based on their location and history. Examining the history of a social change sector shows professionalization to be a nuanced, uneven process that can expand the social change sector even as it transforms the sector's work.
Contributor Notes
* Direct correspondence to Laura Heideman, Department of Sociology, Northern Illinois University, Zulauf Hall 815, DeKalb, IL 60115. Email: lheideman@niu.edu.
† I would like to thank Neal Caren and the anonymous reviewers at Mobilization for their insightful comments. In addition, I would like to thank my colleagues who have provided me feedback throughout the development of this piece: Gay Seidman, Rebecca Schewe, Lefong Lin, Mytoan Nguyen Akbar, Elizabeth Schewe, Diane Rodgers and Simon Weffer. All errors are, of course, my own.