Search

Recent literature has highlighted the central role that donor identity, the perception of oneself as a giving person, plays in fundraising. In this, nonprofit organizations develop strategies to encourage a generous self-perception among potential donors and volunteers to elicit donations. However, existing literature has not yet examined the cultural repertoires that organizations develop to portray convincing representations of donor identity to their donor and volunteer base. This article argues that nonprofit organizations draw on broad, culturally defined notions of the moral good to create idealized depictions of a donor identity. To demonstrate, the article looks at the early decades of the Red Cross movement. It shows that the movement developed four different logics to depict romanticized notions of donors and volunteers, each based on a different idea of the social good. The article argues that such meaning-making is a key aspect of nonprofit organizations' work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is burgeoning research on environmental activism, few studies have examined the interrelationship between nationalism and nature protection in detail. This article examines how groups manage the tension between national commitment and caring for the environment. It focuses on two opposing Israeli activist groups: a settler movement that aims to establish new communities in the fast‐dwindling Israeli open expanses and a "green" movement intent on preserving open spaces. Our observations, interviews, and textual analysis show that both groups believe themselves to be committed to the protection of nature, and that both groups see environmental responsibility as an integral aspect of their Zionist identity. However, the Israeli green movement sees abstaining from interventions in nature and adhering to sustainable development as Zionist because it preserves Israel for future generations. Conversely, the settler movement sees active intervention in nature—by building new communities, planting trees, and hiking—as the proper way to protect Israeli natural expanses and to maintain the livelihood of Israeli society. Our case study demonstrates that, although environmental movements often aspire to universalism, local movements also interlace environmentalism and nationalism in ways that generate multiple (and even contradictory) interpretations of the appropriate way to care for nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent political events, such as Brexit and Trump's election, have inspired talk of collective trauma in academic publications and news outlets. Yet, scholars have been unclear about the processes that transform mundane political events into collective traumatic experiences. In this article, we ask how political factions come to interpret election outcomes as a trauma. We draw on cultural trauma theory to examine the ways state-founding political elites interpret their election losses. We show that such elites commemorate the loss by employing narratives that depict them as victims of unjust political processes, and simultaneously provide them with a sense of moral superiority. This enduring self-conception hinders subsequent efforts to draw new supporters or to change political strategies. We demonstrate this process using two empirical cases: the Israeli Labor Party and the Turkish Republican People's Party, both of whom dominated their respective nations for decades until they were ousted through democratic elections. We suggest that cultural trauma theory can illuminate the reasons for some of the political deadlocks that shape newly founded democracies' policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]