Filip Wijkström

There is a growing interest in the enhancement and expansion of civil society worldwide. This interest is partly spurred by a recent and growing line of research on nonprofit and voluntary activities. A second wave of inspiration for the debate is found in the the work of researchers dealing more directly with the idea of a civil society. A strong interest in the somewhat amorphous concept of 'social capital' can also be noted. Almost without exception, empirical studies carried out and more theoretical work conducted along these paths deal with their object of study from a normatively positive angle: civil society activities and engagement seem to, almost per definition, be understood to be not only good but also necessary for a well-functioning (i.e., democratic) larger society. If this attitude of general neglectance is abandoned for a short while, the rather short notes or comments found in the literature seem to be based on almost no empirical evidence and the theoretical argumentation is surprisingly weak. This paper instead takes its departure in the fact that some organizations - examplified here by outlaw motorcycle gangs and white hate groups are considered worse than others. In the paper, it is firstly tested and shown that such organizations really do belong conceptually to a civil society. However, the ability of earlier research to include material on these organizations in their empirical data is questioned. It is argued that this - empirically as well as theoretically - important subpopulation is often left out of the analysis due to the intrinsic 'positive' understanding we seem to have of civil society organizations. In the conclusions, a number of definitional issues are addressed.

Outlaw motorcycle clubs have elsewhere been used as an extreme case to test the borders and content of what is generally understood as civil society. Based on secondary empirical data sources, the conclusion was reached that  - according to existing definitions - archetypical outlaw club is to be considered part of civil society. The present essay is divided into two parts. Firstly, in the main part of the text, three frames of interpretation found in the literature on outlaw biking are refined and presented. The shift of  frames are used as an analytical tool in an attempt to understand dimensions and features of the empirical phenomenon 'outlaw motorcycle clubs' that do not present themselves as easily in one single frame. The first part of the essay is concluded with a section in which it is argued that the diversity among outlaw motorcycle clubs are neglected, and a typology of clubs is proposed. In a second and more tentative part, three highly speculative sections is provided. The first addresses the images created in the first part from the perspective that commitment and different types of relations can be seen as responses to uncertainty. In the second section is a tentative model on how voluntary associations' impact on the level of social capital in society can be understood. Concluding the essay is a brief note on the future of outlaw biking. At the end, a short list of the major sources on outlaw biking used for this essay will be found.

This essay is sprung from a larger research project, aiming at mapping the Swedish nonprofit sector in comparison to a number of other countries. During this work, we have had to tackle the fact that the "sector" was" in fact, not understood as one sector but consisted of several different organizational groups, or types unified by a basic rationality or certain organizational principles and attributes, rather than specific fields of activity. One of the largest and most influential groups or types found in Sweden are the traditional popular movements (folkrörelserna) and their organizations, e.g., the labor, temperance, and free church movements. All of these organizations gathered strength around the turn of the century and have been influential actors in Swedish society for the major part of the 20th century. Now, at the end of the century, these organizations are often claimed - by themselves as well as by society at large - to be experiencing a crisis. Some of the symptoms are decreasing membership figures, less political influence, and active members turning passive. A number of explanations have been put forth but too often the organizations - and other observers - have tried to analyze only one or two of these explanations, or - in a "rational" step-by-step manner - tried to address and solve the issues or problems experienced sequentially. In my view, this approach is often insuffiecient to handle such complex and interrelated relations and processes. In this essay, I will try to provide a more comprehensive picture of the situation.