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Neither Market nor Sate Domain: Nonprofits From the Ostroms Theoretical Perspective

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly

Published online on

Abstract

This article explores the Ostroms’ perspective on nonprofit enterprises and on the place of the "third sector" within the broader ecology of governmental, for-profit, and nonprofit forms of social organization, focusing on three levels: the micro level based on a taxonomical analysis of the nature of (quasi)public goods and of the implications of their heterogeneity for their provision and consumption through nonprofit arrangements (with a special focus on the notion of "coproduction"); the mezzo level—the analysis of the various organizational structures emerging around (quasi)public goods dealt with by compounded units of production, provision, and consumption (with a focus on the notion of "public economy"); and the macro level—the introduction of the notion of "polycentricity" as a meta-framework inviting a reconceptualization of the relationships between the for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental organizations in diverse and dynamic institutional environments.