ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critique of the political language used to distinguish the "nonprofit" sector from the "public" and "private" sectors as a "third" or "independent" sector, or as composed of "voluntary associations." It deals with institutions which function within the multiple constraints of what Cohen and Rogers call "capitalist democracy. In such societies, three sets of institutional arrangements have both interdependent and contradictory relations: capitalism, the state and democracy. The chapter shows how nonprofit organizations are subjected to contradictory demands, depending on their relations to the institutional logics of the capitalist economy, the bureaucratic state, and a democratic culture. The basic premise is that political language constructs both political subjects and political objects. The tripartite distinction between public, private and nonprofit is highly problematic, even for scholars committed to the goals identified with voluntarism and independence. Democratic rhetoric creates legitimate space for the corporate and public nonprofits to operate, shielded by the notions of voluntarism and participation.
