Sociological Perspectives on the Role of Voluntary Association in Economic Development

Voluntary association as an institution for development recently appears to be an emerging topic for theoretical debates among sociologists. This study was addressed to examining previous theories of two main sociological perspectives­psychological and structural-on the role of voluntary associations in economic development and exploring the possibility of integrating the divergent theories. Based on the critical synthesis of the two sociological perspectives, we suggest a hypothetical model of economic development in which voluntary associations are supposed to play educational and/or institutional roles under the different development conditions of society