From Partnership to the Big Society: The Third Sector Policy Regime in the UK

Alcock Pete ()
Additional contact information
Alcock Pete: School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham, Park House 40 Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham B15 2RT, UK

Nonprofit Policy Forum, 2016, vol. 7, issue 2, 95-116

Abstract: This article provides an overview of the changing balance of state and third sector relations in the UK over the last decade or so. It briefly sets this in the broader context of the changing nature of these relations over a longer historical perspective, and it develops the notion of interdependence as a framework for understanding how these relations have become established in the country. Recent political discourses and policy publications are drawn on to explain the shifts in policy regime under the Labour and Coalition governments in the UK in the early twenty-first century, emphasising the differences and similarities in these. The conclusion situates these regimes in a broader context of state and third sector analysis and the contested conceptualisation of civil society. Since 1999 third sector policy in the UK has been devolved to the separate administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and this article focuses largely on developments in England only.

Keywords: third sector; state; United Kingdom; interdependence; third way; big society (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2015-0022 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:nonpfo:v:7:y:2016:i:2:p:95-116:n:3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/npf/html

DOI: 10.1515/npf-2015-0022

Access Statistics for this article

Nonprofit Policy Forum is currently edited by Dennis Young

More articles in Nonprofit Policy Forum from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().