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Voluntary Organisations and Social Policy in Britain: Perspectives on Change and Choice, edited by Margaret Harris and Colin Rochester. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 240 pp. $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-333-79313-7.
There has been an explosion of research on voluntary organizations in recent years, and with very good reason. A dramatic shift has taken place in the social policy apparatus across the major industrialized countries. Over the past two decades, voluntary organizations have become subcontractors of traditional government services in health, education, and housing as state-based approaches to policy have come under increasing attack.
The expanded social policy role of the socalled third sector amidst state retrenchment has created academic interest in understanding the causes and ramifications of this sea change in the policy landscape. Such was the goal of the twentieth anniversary symposium held at the Centre for Voluntary Organisation of the London School of Economics in 1998. Out of that symposium come fifteen papers that comprise this very fine and most timely volume. They collectively illuminate the range and depth of the policy roles that the third sector currently plays in Britain.
Voluntary Organisations and Social Policy in Britain addresses three important policy questions: To what extent have voluntary organizations changed in response to...