Product Description: This Handbook is the first attempt to systematically examine, empirically and analytically, the contours of the third sector policy process in the European Union (EU). While scholarship on the social, economic and political contributions of organizations existing between the market and the state has proliferated in recent years, no sustained attention has previously been paid to how such organizations are collectively treated by, and respond to, public policy...read more

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This text presents an account of the voluntary sector's development and current position in the UK. The authors begin by defining "voluntary organizations" and then briefly outline their history, going on to explain the voluntary sector in relation to law, education and the state. The text concludes with a discussion of policy issues - including the crucial issue of how voluntary organizations can survive in the 1990s and beyond.

Based on detailed research in twenty-five local authorities, this book focuses on initial experiences of, and attitudes towards, operating within social care markets. It examines perspectives on and capacities to implement the community care reforms, and locates them within conceptual and policy frameworks which help us identify implications for local authorities, private and voluntary sector providers, central government and the research community. Generally, local authorities have moved from a relatively crude anti-commercialism to a belief that the market is capable of delivering benefits to users and carers. However, there is relatively little evidence that authorities have developed understandings of how to use the market to achieve social goals.This is a fascinating story of how social care markets are actually operating. It is the second book to arise from this large scale longitudinal research, and is a worthy successor to the widely welcomed first book, Social Care in a Mixed Economy.