five - The third sector in context

Summary

Introduction

Chapter Three highlighted the ambiguities inherent in defining the third sector. This chapter explores further the changing boundaries between the state, the market and the third sector, discussing different ways of understanding the relationship between the sectors over time and space and the implications for third sector organisations as channels for civil commitment and activism. It then draws on institutional and governmentality theory to consider the implications of blurring and hybridisation for the sector's role in promoting active citizenship.

Models of the state–third sector relationship

Several attempts have been made to formulate typologies of the relationship between the state and the third sector (Kramer, 1981; Gidron et al, 1992; Salamon and Anheier, 1998; Wagner, 2000). Salamon and Anheier, for example, drew on Esping Andersen's (1990) welfare regime theory to suggest four models of third sector regime – liberal, corporatist, statist and social democrat. Such attempts are open to challenge in three respects. First, they tend to focus on the OECD countries and take for granted ways of understanding the world in relation to the state and market that may not always apply elsewhere. Second, they take insufficient account of change over time and variations within sectors and countries and between welfare fields. Third, they tend to focus on service delivery – or the ‘welfare mix’ and hence on civil commitment rather than activism. Nonetheless, they provide a useful starting point for our discussion. With such reservations in mind, therefore, we draw on these and other sources to identify a number of ‘ideal types’, characterised by different ideological perspectives, and explore their implications for the role of the third sector in promoting different types of active citizenship.

The ideal types we have identified are presented in Table 1, along with a description of the ideologies that underpin them, the relationship between the sector, the role of the state and the role of the third sector – first in promoting citizenship as civil commitment and second in promoting citizenship as activism.

Embedded in a liberal laissez faire ideology, the dual model is one in which state and third sector roles develop largely independently of each other and are seen as separate spheres.