The Challenges of Societal Changes and the Power of Volunteers: Can co-production maintain local liveability?

Abstract

Processes such as urbanisation and societal shifts like the demographic transition or migration within and across national borders lead to ever new challenges for local governments. One of these challenges is the maintenance of local liveability. Referring to the Community Capitals Framework, this thesis analyses how local governments can cooperate with volunteers to improve their political capital. Thereby it is argued that the most sustainable way of interaction is co-production. Additionally, it is analysed which aspects exist on the volunteers respectively the municipalities side that might hinder or benefit such cooperation. As part of the INTERREG VA project “Volunteers 2.0”, this thesis compares the situation in ten Dutch and German municipalities to figure out the differences and similarities in the current situations as well as solution approaches of each municipality and on a broader scale across the border. Key concepts: liveability; Community Capitals Framework; social capital; co-production; demographic transition