Keep going on: A qualitative comparative analysis on the durability of solidarity initiatives during and after crisis
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| Author | Beitske Boonstra,Sophie Claessens,Rianne Warsen,Ingmar Van Meerkerk |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12897 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Keep going on: A qualitative comparative analysis
on the durability of solidarity initiatives during
and after crisis
Beitske Boonstra
1,2
|Sophie Claessens
1
|Rianne Warsen
1
|
Ingmar Van Meerkerk
1
1
Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural
Sciences (ESSB), Department of Public
Administration and Sociology, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
2
Resilient Delta Initiative, Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
Correspondence
Beitske Boonstra, Erasmus School of Social
and Behavioural Sciences (ESSB), Department
of Public Administration and Sociology,
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam,
The Netherlands.
Email: boonstra@essb.eur.nl
Funding information
ZonMw, Grant/Award Number:
10430042010034
Abstract
During the COVID-19 lockdowns in the Netherlands,
numerous solidarity initiatives emerged, providing relief to
those affected by lockdown measures. These initiatives
have an important added value for a society under crisis as
they provide instant solutions to timely, crisis-related needs,
strengthen connectivity between stakeholders and divide
the burdens of the crisis. The durability of these initiatives
is however a concern and although the literature on durabil-
ity of community-based initiatives is growing, there is a lack
of understanding how initiatives can sustain under the chal-
lenging dynamics of a major crisis. Using a fuzzy set Qualita-
tive Comparative Analysis of 14 COVID-19 solidarity
initiatives in Rotterdam, this article explores whether condi-
tions for the durability of community-based initiatives in
general (social capital, organizational resources, transforma-
tional leadership, and government support) also apply dur-
ing a crisis, with special attention of the configurations of
conditions under the challenging context of the COVID-19
pandemic.
Received: 24 February 2022Revised: 18 October 2022Accepted: 26 October 2022
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12897
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which
permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no
modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2022 The Authors. Public Administration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Public Admin. 2023;101:1443–1460. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm 1443
1|INTRODUCTION
“And we thought we'd be here for like ten days, tops! What did we know? […] We thought we knew a lot.
[…] Woooo! Keep going on song. This is the keep going, keep going, keep going on…Keep going on song.”
The Bengsons—The Keep Going Song, released October 2020.
When in March 2020 the first COVID-19 lockdown was announced in the Netherlands, numerous solidarity ini-
tiatives emerged throughout the city of Rotterdam. Committed and engaged initiators in civil society—mostly entre-
preneurs and community organizations—established coalitions with welfare agencies, companies, charitable funds,
and the local government, to realize activities providing relief to those effected by the lockdown measures: elderly,
socio-economically vulnerable groups, schoolchildren, entrepreneurs, and the cultural sector.
Such initiatives have an important added value for a city under crisis. They provide instant and pragmatic solu-
tions to timely and crisis-related needs and challenges. Whereas institutional actors often need the time to adjust to
a new (crisis) situation, initiatives from civil society have the flexibility, pro-activity, and creativity toprovide swift
answers to urgent needs and problems. This has been illustrated by civic initiatives during and after floods and other
natural disasters (Aldrich, 2010), in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2009 (Deslandes, 2013), and during the
2015 European refugee crisis (Boonstra, 2020). Also, during the COVID-19 pandemic, civil society showed its ability
to provide relief, support, and solidarity, making citizens feel less vulnerable (Carlsen et al., 2020; Engbersen
et al., 2020; Marston et al., 2020; Mishra & Rath, 2020). But solidarity initiatives offer more than mere help. Solidar-
ity stands for the joined action and togetherness of individuals to act against a common threat and collectively divide
the burdens of this threat among one another (Kip, 2016). Solidarity—as in times of COVID-19—strengthens this
togetherness (Mishra & Rath, 2020; Tomasini, 2021), and thus not only increases the well-being of individuals but
also positively impacts the connectedness and relationships within a society (Prainsack & Buyx, 2017;
Tomasini, 2021). Solidarity initiatives are thus not only a relief amid a crisis but also hold potential for post-crisis
periods.
However, the durability of solidarity initiatives is a challenge. This accounts in non-crisis contexts (Igalla
et al., 2019; Van Meerkerk et al., 2018), but becomes even more pressing under crisis conditions. After a crisis, there
may be less direct need for solidarity activities and, over time, a strong tendency may arise to return to business as
usual (Boonstra, 2020). Whereas the literature on durability of community-based initiatives is growing (Igalla
et al., 2019), empirical evidence and theoretical reflection is still rather scarce (Edelenbos et al., 2018; Igalla
et al., 2019; Kleinhans et al., 2021; Voorberg et al., 2015). Moreover, there is a lack of understanding of how solidar-
ity initiatives can sustain under and after the turbulent times of a major crisis, and what this implies for urban gover-
nance (cf. Carstensen et al., 2022).
Durability, for example, the ability to sustain over time, is considered an important outcome of community
initiatives, as it ensures the availability of the services these initiatives offer to citizens. However, durability does
not just concern goal realization and provision of services, but also the ability to grow further and development
over time, survive external and internal changes, develop long-term viability without significant deterioration in
quality or value (Igalla et al., 2019; Kleinhans et al., 2021; Powell et al., 2019; Van Meerkerk et al., 2018), and
create a long-lasting impact on relationships, positions, and rules between stakeholders, on organizational bound-
aries, and jurisdictions (Voorberg et al., 2015). Existing scholarly literature on community-based initiatives points
out several conditions that influence this durability (Fransen et al., 2022; Igalla et al., 2020; Kleinhans
et al., 2021; Van Meerkerk et al., 2018). These studies, however, are based on initiatives that emerged within a
relatively stable context. The turbulence of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent societal measures has cre-
ated a context that was anything but stable.
This article, therefore, explores whether these conditions also apply to the durability of solidarity initiatives in
times of crisis, by asking the question: Which configuration(s) of conditions explain the durability of solidarity initiatives
during the COVID-19 crisis? We applied a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Ragin, 2000) to 14 COVID-19
1444 BOONSTRA ET AL.
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