Smallville: Institutionalizing Community in 21st Century America (review)

Smallville uses case studies in rural Pennsylvania to address a series of issues regarding community responses to social problems, civil society and the social context of nonprofits. Through analysis that brings together community studies, non-profit studies and the civic engagement debate, Milofsky provides important contributions to each literature. In contrast to community studies literature that often focuses either on individuals or communities as a whole, Milofsky demonstrates that communities address social problems through fostering non-profits and the actions of community decision organizations such as schools, key non-profits and local government. While most research on non-profits views organizations as independent entities or explores the interactions among non-profits as institutional actors, Smallville shows that each non-profit is the product of community social capital, reflecting local politics, power and relationships. Nonprofits relate to each other not only as independent entities, but through overlapping community networks. The book also contributes significantly to the civic engagement debate fostered by Putnam and others by providing in-depth case analysis of how civic projects evolve. By looking carefully into the black box of civil society, Smallville provides significant insights into how and why social capital evolves into community wide civic engagement.

Cases serve as data to develop new theory on the context for non-profit activity. The first and last chapters provide theoretical groundwork for analysis focused on the community structures and non-profit relationships that spawn non-profits and guide their activity. Emphasizing overlapping networks of people and institutions in local communities, he argues for a theory of transorganizations: purposive, productive systems that produce organizations that span corporate boundaries. Strategies to address community wide social problems involve more than the activities of key individuals or nonprofits, but are best understood as the product of transorganizational efforts.

Each chapter explores one case in depth to illuminate aspects of community social capital, non-profit evolution and the web of relationships in local communities manifested through non-profits. Chapters provide both case description and analysis, building toward the overarching theoretical arguments. Cases cover a range of topics: dynamics within non-profits, evolution of civic movements and their institutionalization in non-profits, the importance of networks of individuals and organizations in community problem solving, and the significant role of mediating structures for both non-profits and communities.

Many of the non-profits profiled here differ from the expectation of hierarchical or bureaucratic organizations that dominates the non-profit administration literature. A secondary goal of this book involves demonstrating to non-profit scholars that several forms of non-profit governance exist and that multiple trajectories for non-profit growth and evolution must be recognized. The book suggests that additional study of these alternative types of organizations would be an important avenue for future research.

The book functions on two levels. The primary text appears to be written for undergraduates or a general audience, presenting case data and brief references to a wide range of existing theorists. Sometimes the case details wander into discussion extraneous to the major goal for that case, but generally each chapter connects case data to a specific lesson regarding organizations and communities. The theoretical points are presented clearly at the beginning and end of each chapter. Extensive endnotes back up the text. In addition to providing references, notes include in-depth discussion of existing theory, sometimes offering additional theoretical arguments. I would encourage scholars to read the notes in order to understand the Milofsky's argument fully.

Smallville draws extensively on organizational and community theory from the 1970s and earlier in developing the new theory presented in the book. As such, Milofsky returns to earlier theory on community structures, social movements and non-profit relations to present an alternative to much of current community studies and non-profits theory. Because many younger scholars have little experience with these foundational sociological theorists, the book demonstrates the implications of this earlier, often overlooked work. Older theoretical constructs are intertwined with current approaches to social capital, civic engagement and...