While there is a long established and deeply embedded tradition of voluntary action and nonprofit organizing in Ireland, there has been very limited debate on a philosophy of voluntary action or on the place of the third sector in a modern democratic state. It is against this background that practitioners and academics are beginning to articulate their individual understandings of the role of the third sector in Irish society. This paper presents a framework developed from three questions to consider the place of the third sector in a modern democratic state. The questions are: What are the roles of the third sector in a society? What relationships exist between the third and other sectors? How are third sector organizations resourced within that societal context? Answering these questions contributes to a conceptualization of the third sector in Ireland, North and South.

This paper traces the development of the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland from the early 1970s onwards. Particular attention is given to the expansion of the voluntary and community sector in the 1970s, community action in conflict with government in the 1980s, and new funding—from the European Union and other international sources—for development work since the mid-1990s. More recent trends discussed include the rapprochement of the voluntary and community sector with government, which has seen a growth in formal partnerships and networking, as well as the impact of the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

The recent attention on civil society has brought new focus to the third sector. This welcomed attention accentuates the need to specify the role of the third sector in promoting civil society, generally, and in promoting democratic civil society, specifically. This paper describes and examines the “YES” Campaign that had roots in the third sector of Northern Ireland and which conducted a nonpartisan campaign to win approval for the Belfast Agreement of April 1998. The case of the “YES” Campaign illustrates some direct and intentional roles of third sector organizations in promoting a more democratic civil society, and offers a basis for further study of these roles.

This paper presents a case study and analysis of Co-operation Ireland, a nonprofit cross-border peace and reconciliation organization. The case description traces the interplay between the organization’s development and its operating environment. Three broad, overlapping periods of relationships with different constituencies are identified. The requirements of managing these relationships and their impact on organizational development are highlighted. The pattern of financing of the organization is examined to identify critical, legitimizing relationships. Resource dependence and institutional theory are utilized to analyze the bases for legitimation of the organization over time. It is proposed that nonprofit organizations without independent resources are particularly sensitive to environmental constraints.

This paper applies “organizational field” analysis to compare the structure of the third sector housing fields in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Following preliminary accounts of history, structure, funding, and regulation, four key dimensions of field structure are compared: interaction, subgroups, structural equivalence, and patterns of domination. In both fields studied, early steering by the state into specialist roles has been overtaken by state funded expansion in general needs housing—increasing the dominance of larger organizations and tensions around voluntary sector identity. However, differences remain in the extent of domination and tightness of field structure, with greater emphasis on “whole organization regulation,” and adherence to professional and trade bodies in Northern Ireland. It is also shown how cross-border activity and the espousal of a “European model” will influence future trajectories.

In the United Kingdom, the “New Labour” administration that came to power in 1997 has promoted two models of partnership between the state and the voluntary sector. The civic engagement model is based on the renewed interest among governments in the potential of voluntary organizations to contribute to the civic engagement of citizens. In the service delivery model, voluntary organizations are recruited to the task of delivering core social services. Drawing on data from disability-related voluntary organizations in Northern Ireland, this paper illustrates the impact of the service delivery partnership model on the development of voluntary action in the welfare field, and the relative paucity of resources allocated to participatory voluntary action and civic engagement. The consequent impact on the development of partnerships between the state and the voluntary sector is discussed.