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Academics, policy makers and practitioners often stress the need for definition to inform analysis and policy. This paper explores recent debate on the identification of a third sector of organisational activity in the UK. It reviews some leading academic models that have sought to locate this sector alongside others, and then examines attempts to identify the sector as a focus for policy and practice. The importance of policy discourses in shaping debate and constructing definition is explained and the potentially fractured nature of these discourses is explored. These are then contrasted with discourses from practice. A distinction is made between exogenous and endogenous approaches to definition, and the implications of each discussed. The paper identifies a strategic unity within discourse in the UK over the last decade and argues that this has been effective in constituting a unified third sector within policy and practice, albeit one with underlying diversity and potential longer-term instability. The need for definition Academics, policy makers and practitioners all need to be able to define the terms they use in discussion, and in particular to be able to delineate the key concepts that they rely on. Academic debate is often focused on disagreement over definition of core terms, and differences found in academic research are often the product of different definitions and approaches underpinning research questions. Too often perhaps academics end up talking at 'cross purposes', using the same terms to mean different things, and this is true for practitioners and policy makers too. It seems sensible therefore to begin by trying to define key terms, and this may be particularly important for a relatively new field of academic research such as third sector studies. The focus of this paper is on the use of the term 'third sector' in the UK. It seeks to explain why this concept has arisen in recent academic debate and to explore how we might understand and even define it, differentiating this from other key terms such as the 'voluntary sector' and the 'community sector'. This is a contested field, however, and both the definition and the existence of a third sector have been subject to debate and disagreement. There is debate and disagreement because there are different perspectives being brought to bear, including the perspectives of policy makers, practitioners and academics; and more broadly in international debate there are distinct cultural and political legacies arising in different national settings. Differing perspectives are based to a large extent on the beliefs, agendas and constraints that drive protagonists. For instance, the aims of policy makers (and more especially politicians)
Discussion about, and analysis of, the question of definition and the third sector and civil society more generally has developed to a significant degree in recent years. This paper can be located in a new phase of recent research, which seeks to attend to the historical, cultural and politically contingent nature of this domain's boundaries. The process of constituting the sector is discussed as the product of new discourses of decontestation and contention within third sector policy and practice. It takes England as a case study, drawing on evidence and argument assembled by the authors in recent and ongoing research efforts, variously conducted with the support of the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) and the European Commission. The paper proceeds by discussing relevant literature; describing recent patterns of policy institutionalisation; and then tries to draw out more analytically how this process of constitution has been associated not so much with a stable and consistent set of definitions and constructs, but rather with unstable and changing formulations, which reflect the playing out of a dual process of decontestation and contention.Résumé Ces dernières années, les discussions et l'analyse portant sur la question de la définition du tiers-secteur et plus généralement de la société civile se sont développées de manière importante. Cet article aborde une nouvelle phase des études récentes, qui cherche à appréhender la contingence historique, culturelle et politique des frontières de ce domaine. Le processus de constitution de ce secteur est envisagé comme étant le produit de nouveaux discours de décontestation et des controverses au sein des politiques et des pratiques du tiers-secteur. L'article prend
The development of third sector policy in the UK since 1997 has seen changes which have been of significance both for analysts and practitioners. This period has seen government engagement with and support for the sector extend far beyond the levels found throughout much of the last century. This has led to a growth in the size and scale of the sector and a closer involvement of sector representatives in political debate and policy planning. These changes have taken place at the same time as third sector policy has been devolved to the new administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This article explores the impact of devolution on these policy developments and assesses the extent to which political devolution has led to policy divergence across the four countries in the UK. The conclusion is reached that policy devolution has created important new space for policy development for the third sector across the UK, but that the direction of travel in all four regimes has remained remarkably similar.
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