Comparing France and the United States: Nonprofit Organizations and Democracy, CEVIPOF, Sciences Politiques, Paris

January 15, 2010

Speech given by Judith R. Baroody, Minister Counselor for Public Affairs, American Embassy in Paris.

Bonjour!  C’est un réel plaisir pour moi d’être invitée à m’exprimer devant vous sur le thème des associations en France et aux Etats-Unis.

Civic participation has a long and rich history in the United States, and dates back to our earliest beginnings, as new groups of people established themselves in a rough and untamed land.  They worked together out of necessity to solve problems from felling trees to building homes and schools.  A spirit of “can-do-itness” is a strong part of our culture, as observed by none other than the venerable Alexis de Tocqueville when he visited America in 1831.  Tocqueville observed that: 

In the United States associations are established to promote public order, commerce, industry, morality, and religion; for there is no end which the human will, seconded by the collective exertions of individuals, despairs of attaining.

Today in the United States, the same tendency that Tocqueville recognized almost 200 years ago is still going strong.  According to the IRS, in a country with a population of 300 million people, there are over 1.5 million non-profit associations.  Nonprofit organizations include everything from neighborhood associations that meet occasionally to Harvard University and the Gates Foundation, each with tens of billions in assets. They include soup kitchens and traditional "charities" that serve the poor as well as religious organizations, chambers of commerce, the Girl Scouts, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. There's no "one-size-fits-all" way to think about nonprofit organizations.  They have developed where people have come together to fill a need that wasn’t already being filled by government or business.  That’s why the “civil society” sector in the U.S. has come to be known as the “third sector.”

Tocqueville also observed :

In their political associations, the Americans of all conditions, minds, and ages, daily acquire a general taste for association, and grow accustomed to the use of it. There they meet together in large numbers, they converse, they listen to each other, and they are mutually stimulated to all sorts of undertakings. They afterwards transfer to civil life the notions they have thus acquired, and make them subservient to a thousand purposes….In democratic countries the science of association is the mother of science; the progress of all the rest depends upon the progress it has made.

So it is not surprising that the founders of the United States laid the groundwork for civic involvement, civil liberties, and ultimately the formation of a rich and diverse civil society in the First Amendment of the Constitution.  The First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 

Although the right to associate is not explicitly stated, the Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the First Amendment to include freedom of association to be a fundamental right protected by it.  

An outside observer might ask whether all these organizations are necessary. In a recent book published by the Kennedy School of Government (which, I should point out, is another non-profit association!) Archon Fung argues that they are more than necessary; a vibrant civil society is desirable.  He argues that associations enhance democracy in at least six ways: through the intrinsic value of associative life, fostering civic virtues and teaching political skills, offering resistance to power and checking government, improving the quality and equality of representation, facilitating public deliberation, and creating opportunities for citizens and groups to participate directly in governance.

Going back to the 1.5 million non-profit associations in the United States, let’s take a closer look at the numbers.  There are almost 1 million public charities, over 118,000 private foundations, and nearly half a million other types of nonprofit organizations, including chambers of commerce, fraternal organizations and civic leagues. That figure also includes the estimated 377,640 religious congregations in the United States.

Approximately 26.4% of Americans over the age of 16 volunteered through or for an organization between September 2007 and September 2008, and that level of participation has remained relatively constant for the last decade.  Non profit organizations employ 9.3% of the working population in the U.S., which is a world record.  In addition, despite the economic situation, individuals gave $229.28 billion in 2008 to nonprofits and foundations gave $45.6 billion in 2008. 

Overall, in the United States, the non-profit sector has grown by 32% in the last decade, and represents 8.5 % of GDP (versus 4.2 % en France).

Clearly Tocqueville’s observation that Americans had a tendency to organize themselves for collective action is still valid.  It is interesting to consider that at the time he visited the United States, the right to form such associations had not yet been established in France.  He writes, “Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads.”  It would seem Tocqueville was calling for France to hasten to develop its civil society, which would take place several decades later. 

According to the National Registry of French Associations, the Law of July 1, 1901 established the right of citizens to associate themselves without specific prior authorization.  This right is founded on the principles espoused in the 1789 revolution : the primacy of the individual, of his rights and his liberty; the liberty to belong to or to quit an association; the limitation of the goal of an association to a specific objective; the equality of members of an association;  and the administration of an association by its members.

In France, similarly to the United States, associations bring people together for a wide variety of reasons, from the practice of hobbies and sports, to more civic-minded pursuits.  There are approximately 1.1 million non profit organizations in France, and since 2005, the number of associations created each year has steadily increased.  According to a poll by CSA in 2007, nearly nine out of ten (87%) of French people have a good opinion of non profits as well as their directors. (83%).  More than four non profits out of five function only with the assistance of voulnteers, while 16% (172,000) employ staff.  Looking at all types of nonprofit organizations, approximately 1.9 million people are employed, which represents an increase of 700,000 jobs in this sector since 1996. 

Nonprofit organizations also promote democracy in countries with weak democratic institutions.  The National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute were formed in the United States to promote good governance and strengthen political party development in emerging democracies.  Medecins sans Frontiers and Reporters sans Frontiers were founded by French people to promote health in developing countries, and assist in promoting freedom of press and safety for journalists around the world.  France recognizes the importance of nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations in creating partnerships to advance development, and has even established a position at the French Embassy in Washington to be a liaison to nonprofit organizations engaged in work that correlates to French priorities.

Tocqueville argued that the political aspect of voluntary organizations contributes to better awareness and a more informed citizenry, and I heartily agree.  More informed citizens make better voting choices, participate in politics, and hold government more accountable as a result.  More recently, Robert D. Putnam has argued that even non-political organizations in civil society are vital for democracy because they build social capital, trust and shared values, which are transferred into the political sphere and help to hold society together, facilitating an understanding of the interconnectedness of society and interests within it.

Whether you call them associations, the third sector, or nonprofits, these organizations have one thing in common:  they were started by a group of people who got together and saw an unmet need.  Associations bring people together to accomplish a shared goal, from improving the neighborhood, practicing country line dance, or providing food for the needy.  In the United States, this desire to group together is part of our national character.  In the course of your conference, it will be interesting to consider the role associations play in shaping French character and French democracy.