Center for Civil Society International

American private nonprofit organization promoting contact with voluntary organizations abroad.

From the description of Center for Civil Society International records, 1948-2008. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 754864791

Biographical/Historical Note

The World Without War Council, a national American private nonprofit organization, was founded in 1958 with the primary goal of promoting alternatives to war, and with subsidiary goals of promoting civic education, international understanding and democratic government. Its regional office in Seattle, Washington, successively titled the World Without War Council of Greater Seattle and the World Without War Council Northwest Regional Office, was the predecessor organization of the Center for Civil Society International.

The Seattle office transformed itself into the Center for Civil Society International in 1992. This act reflected a realization of the profound changes in the international situation following the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War. The new focus of the Center became promotion of democratic values and civil reconstruction in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. It sought to act as a clearinghouse for contacts between non-governmental organizations in the United States and elsewhere interested in providing technical and other assistance in the new states, and grassroots non-governmental organizations in those countries.

M. Holt Ruffin became executive director of the World Without War Council of Greater Seattle in 1984 and remained as executive director of the Center for Civil Society International. The Hoover Institution Archives acquired the records of the Center in 2008.

From the guide to the Center for Civil Society International records, 1948-2008, (Hoover Institution Archives)