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Framing the Field

Civil Society and Related Concepts

University of Joensuu

This article considers how to frame the area of scholarship that deals with concepts such as third sector, nonprofit, voluntary sector, civil society, philanthropy, nongovernmental organizations, social economy, and public benefit organizations. In spite of more than 30 years' history of the field, which we refer to here broadly as civil society studies, there is not one single term that covers the whole sphere. This article focuses on the different concepts and evaluates their content and connotations. It suggests that attempts to use categorizations should be replaced with the Wittgensteinian idea of family resemblance.

Key Words: civil society • nonprofit sector • voluntary sector • philanthropy • social economy

This version was published on August 1, 2009

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 4, 684-700 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0899764009333245


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