ABSTRACT
This paper explores the respective roles of the board and the general assembly in the governance process of civil society organizations. Based on a quantitative survey of 715 French civil society organizations, the authors propose a typology of civil society organization governance styles that reflects a broad view of governance. The results show that next to the conventional board-based governance style, other styles exist: control-based governance, participative governance and general-assembly-based governance. The research confirms the importance of the general assembly in civil society organization governance and suggests that the different governance bodies can specialize in different roles.
