Governance and Civil Society Group

Scholarship | Research and Outreach | Conferences, Symposia and Workshops

Institute faculty and their associates are working in this field to study the conditions that conduce to healthy civil societies both in the United States and in other nations, as well as the relationships between civil society and effective and equitable democratic governance. Faculty members active in this area are also exploring the roles of nongovernmental and nonprofit institutions in public governance and in transnational networks.  Even as VTIPG faculty and affiliated graduate students work to understand better the complex collaborative structures that now typify public governance in many societies, they are also examining how nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations themselves—in their various forms—are governed. They are employing what they learn through that research to assist those responsible for leading and overseeing these civil society organizations to develop strategies aimed at improving their effectiveness, representativeness, accountability and transparency.