Organizational Culture in the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations: A Move to Institutionalize International Social Movements in the 19th Century (II)

Abstract. Religious actors, namely those who were representing the protestant groups of the Evangelical Awakening, were active in the social movements developed on the basis of ideas to fight against slavery and alcoholism or in favour of peace in the British Empire, the United-States and Western Europe in the first half of the 19th century. The institutionalization of these movements has given a boost to the expansion of a phenomenon today known as non-governmental organizations (INGOs). This paper focuses on the analysis of the impetus to “become organized” given to the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations (YMCA), and on the organizational model realized in this international body in the second half of the 19th century. By doing this, we seek to contribute to the debate on the organizational potential of the Christian religion in the INGOs phenomenon. The analysis is based on the archives of the French and Swiss wings of the Alliance, and on the printed materials produced by the British, American, French and Swiss wings. Relying on the evangelical Christianity’s international network, the World Alliance of YMCAs’ key figures were following the example of the Evangelical Alliance (1846). They were trying to build an interdenominational coalition, and committed themselves to upholding the right of lay people to play a leading role in religious life. The idea of “organization” and its principles implemented in the World Alliance of YMCAs were articulated by the new economic elite, trade and industrial bourgeoisie whose representatives were playing a leading role in the British and American YMCA. In the second part of the article, we discuss how the YMCA leaders articulated and spread the idea of a need for “being organized”, and how they were developing and implementing a methodology of its realization in practice locally and internationally, modifying also the nature of the religious organization and its role in society.

Keywords: international non-governmental organizations, evangelical Christianity, interdenominational interaction, business organizational culture, organized Christianity, rationality, YMCA.

For citation: Pashkeeva N.A. Organizational Culture in the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations: A Move to Institutionalize International Social Movements in the 19th Century (II), in Novoe Proshloe / The New Past. 2021. No. 4. Pp. 142–155. DOI 10.18522/2500‑3224‑2021‑4-142-155.

The article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).