A Fifth Nonprofit Regime?

Abstract

In their social origins theory, Salamon and Anheier demonstrated the need to consider the historical past of societies in order to trace additional factors that motivate and shape the scope and nature of the third sector. This article elaborates the social origins approach to adjust it to a wider spectrum of states and nations and to additional historical experiences. It sheds light on societies that achieved independence after 1945 and went through a process of decolonization. In these countries, social structures and relations with governing authorities were different from the European and North American patterns that inspired the social origins approach. Taken together, such societies suggest an additional theoretical framework—one that explains the structure and characteristics of the third sector in new states in the light of their distinctive historical experience.