Rob Macmillan

De-coupling the state and the third sector? The ‘Big Society’ as a spontaneous order

Despite a largely indifferent and otherwise sceptical public reception, the ‘Big Society’ has remained a central feature of the Conservative-led coalition’s project, with David Cameron referring to it as his passion. However, the Big Society has been a rather elusive concept. Academics and commentators seek to understand what it means, what it signals, and what it might imply. It is viewed by critics as providing political cover for the coalition’s deficit reduction programme and as a Trojan horse for privatisation. Others argue that it represents a significant recasting of the relationship between citizens and the state, as well as providing new opportunities and spaces for voluntary and community activity, recast as social action in civil society. This paper asks what the Big Society might mean for the ‘third sector’ of voluntary organisations, community groups and social enterprises, and in particular how the changing relationship with the state might be understood. The previous Labour government’s approach has been characterised as the development of a closer ‘partnership’ between state and the third sector. Whilst there are important continuities from this time, a partial decoupling may now be underway in the new political and economic context. Theoretically, this might signal a shift away from the idea of interdependence between the state and the third sector, and towards a model involving separate spheres: from partnership to an emergent ‘trial separation’. To explore this dynamic the paper draws on Friedrich Hayek’s theory of ‘spontaneous order’, suggesting that the Big Society involves some implicit Hayekian assumptions. It concludes by considering the implications of regarding the third sector in such terms.

'Distinction' in the third sector

Claims for the distinctiveness of third sector organisations are a relatively widespread and familiar feature of third sector commentary and analysis. This paper reviews relevant theoretical and empirical research to examine the idea of distinctiveness, arguing that such claims remain inconclusive. Informed by a view of the third sector as a contested ‘field’, and drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of ‘distinction’, the paper suggests that research attention should focus additionally on the strategic purpose of claims for distinctiveness, rather than simply continue what might be a ‘holy grail’ search for its existence. The paper uses this argument to complicate and extend the idea of the third sector as a ‘strategic unity’, and concludes by suggesting some further lines of enquiry for third sector research.

What’s in it for us? Consent, Access, and the Meaning of Research in a Qualitative Longitudinal Study

Recruiting third sector organizations (TSOs) to a qualitative longitudinal (QL) study turned out to be in some cases a time-consuming and challenging process, and in others a little too easy. The governance structures of the organizations approached were not always simple to navigate with some organizations in a state of flux. Stakeholders’ different understandings of the meaning of research created tensions around anonymity. Establishing meaningful consent was not a straightforward process: who has the authority to grant “organizational” consent? This chapter explores the process of gaining consent and access, and maintaining relationships with research participants in “Real Times”; a study of TSOs and activities over three years. By third sector we refer to a range of non-governmental organizations and activities, including voluntary organizations, community groups, and social enterprises. Whilst the study is concerned with UK-focused organizations the issues raised can be seen to have direct relevance to the NGO sector and NGO scholarship more generally. Drawing on researchers’ field notes on the recruitment process, and interviews with the research team a year into the project conducted by one member of the team, we unpack some of the practical and ethical challenges of undertaking QL research in organizations.

Evolution in Board Chair-CEO Relationships: A Negotiated Order Perspective

The relationship between chairs and chief executive officers (CEOs) has been largely neglected in research on nonprofit governance. Yet, a growing body of research on corporate governance in the private and public sectors suggests that this relationship is crucial both to the effective functioning of the board and the leadership of the organization. Much of the research on chair–CEO relationships has used cross-sectional research designs ignoring the fact that these relationships will evolve over time. This article responds to some of these challenges. It presents the results from longitudinal research examining the relationship between the chair and chief executive in a nonprofit organization. It shows how this relationship is “negotiated” and develops over time in response to contextual changes.

Third sector capacity building : the institutional embeddedness of supply

Previous articles in Voluntary Sector Review have documented the evolution of third sector capacity-building policy (Macmillan, 2011) and addressed the focus on ‘market-making’, characterised by a discursive shift since 2010 that favours demand-led over supply-led delivery models (Macmillan, 2013). This article builds on these articles by using data from the National Survey of Charities and Social Enterprises (NSCSE) to investigate the characteristics of third sector organisations on the supply side of the capacity-building ‘market’. We argue that the ambitions of the demand-led model need to be understood in the context of the embeddedness of these organisations. This is based on findings that suggests that, immediately prior to the identified discursive shift, a significant proportion of third sector capacity-building providers were embedded in the supply-led model through relationships with and funding from the public sector locally and nationally. This, we suggest, could thwart the ambitions of the demand-led model.