Collaborations Between Public Administrations and Nonprofits: Towards a Relational Society

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, as a result of the problems in the welfare State, we have witnessed a significant shift in the social and political attitudes associated with the public sector in virtually all OECD countries (Prats, 2000). Along with the environment changes described in the introduction to the first section of this book, two other phenomena also stand out. First, the classic State funding model has experienced a severe crisis, which has translated into widespread budgetary emergency and has driven administrations to seek new paths for efficiency improvements. Second, governmental legitimacy has also become profoundly questioned. The State is still perceived as necessary, but it has ceased to be viewed as the foremost driver in economic and social transformations. In other words, governments no longer have all the answers to all the problems, on account of their nature and complexity. Actually, now there are multiple agents that should be taken into account for the search for and development of solutions to the challenges faced by current societies. This is what some analysts have defined as “welfare pluralism”.