Democratising the non-profit sector: reconfiguring the state-non-profit sector relationship in the UK

This article argues that wherever non-profit organisations fulfil significant publicly funded service delivery roles, they must have an internal democratic structure conducive to ensuring that services are legitimate, accountable and of a high effectiveness and quality. Successive governments in the United Kingdom have adopted strategies that have led to increasing levels of isomorphism, with hierarchical, bureaucratic and private sector governance structures becoming the organisational archetypal norm within the sector, intensifying and strengthening the significant barriers to democratic governance that already exist. An alternative 'assisted self-reliant complimentarity' state–non-profit sector relationship that would be more conducive to a democratic governance archetype is advocated.