Neither Market nor Sate Domain: Nonprofits From the Ostroms' Theoretical Perspective

This article explores the Ostroms' perspective on nonprofit enterprises and on the place of the third sector within the broader ecology of governmental, for-profit, and nonprofit forms of social organization, focusing on three levels: the micro level based on a taxonomical analysis of the nature of (quasi)public goods and of the implications of their heterogeneity for their provision and consumption through nonprofit arrangements (with a special focus on the notion of coproduction); the mezzo levelthe analysis of the various organizational structures emerging around (quasi)public goods dealt with by compounded units of production, provision, and consumption (with a focus on the notion of public economy); and the macro levelthe introduction of the notion of polycentricity as a meta-framework inviting a reconceptualization of the relationships between the for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental organizations in diverse and dynamic institutional environments.