ABSTRACT
The academic debate on the future of the third sector on both sides of the Atlantic has repeatedly questioned the possibility of combining the roles of being an advocate of change with that of a service provider. The growth of one means a decline in the other, some have argued. This touches on their nature as hybrid organizations, at least indirectly, and on their ability to pursue more than one goal at a time. The Center for Social Investments defi nes hybrid organizations as entities that straddle the border between the public and private, as well as between the for-profi t and nonprofi t sectors, and they often combine the logics of the seemingly distinct spheres of the market, state and civil society (Anheier, 2011). This chapter proposes to analyze the relation between hybridity and the third sector in relation to the co-production of public services. How does co-production of public services complicate this picture?
