The paper is investigating invariant factors and the possible institutional variance produced by differences between countries, that impede or stimulate the utilisation of voluntary labour in municipalities, using data from one Italian and one Swedish municipality. Our major findings are 1. that the major invariant factor is that the uncertainty of the voluntary labour stimulates the mediation of it through organisations, and 2. that the institutional variance is influenced by the state actions.
The research were partly financed by the Swedish Council for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences and by the University of Ferrara. We are grateful for the help by Caroline Hellström and Enrico Bracci. An earlier version were presented at the Public-Private Partnership conference, Cork, Ireland, 2000.