On esquisse l'histoire du secteur sans but lucratif, histoire qui a laissé des strates successives qui expliquent en partie sa structure actuelle. Puis, on examine le poids économique de ce Tiers secteur, à partir des premiers résultats, du compte des institutions sans but lucratif,...

After a brief overview of the historical background, the main object of this chapter is to analyse the type of relationship that have been developed between the government, at its different levels, and the non-profit organisations, in the recent years, and the consequences of these new...

Comparativement aux pays de développement comparable, il y a très peu de fondations en France et le statut associatif est le plus souvent préféré pour promouvoir des causes d'intérêt général. Les causes historiques et juridiques de cette désaffection sont analysées avant que l'on...

Volunteering is considered first as a gift of time but the world of the gift does not generally fit into the framework of the economic calculation. Yet, volunteer work represents an important productive resource which is taken into account by voluntary associations and nonprofit institutions....

This article summarises the main results of the Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Sector Comparative Project, phase 2, for the 9 European countries included in the project. Then it contrasts the European and the US patterns. Finally the European pattern is splitted into four variations: corporatist,...

The European Union in its widening movement shows five clusters of Third sector organisations with complex bonds and ties with the surrounding societies and national identities In introduction, we compare briefly the Europe's Third sector features to North America's ones (Historical and...

This paper intends to show that a European pattern of social economy exists, contrasting with the US nonprofit sector. This European pattern could be declined in five variations linked to the welfare state regimes and to the social origins of the countries. In the first part dealing with the...

Recently the measurement of Social economy has dramatically improved in France despite its invisibility in National accounts. The knowledge of its larger part, the nonprofit organisations, depends on the surveys run at Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne, a unique data base while cross-country...

Though deeply rooted in the Middle Ages, as in every European Country, the French nonprofit sector differs in that it was secularized and restricted at the beginning of the 19th century by the centralized state. According to a tradition dating back to the 1789 Revolution, the state had the...

This article is an entry to be published in an International Encyclopedia of Civil Society in 2009. Mutual organizations exist everywhere in developed and developing countreies as well. After a definition founded on social economy principles, the paper gives the historical background of mutual...