The provision and governance of personal social services is nowadays often thought as a matter of finding the right balance between market principles and state regulation. However often, personal social services depend as well from a third resource and mechanism of governance: It is the impact of the social capital of civil society, which makes itself felt not only by resources such as grants, donations, and volunteering, but as well by networking and social partnerships. A number of crucial changes in welfare and service provision have led to a situation, where service systems and service units, rather than being part of a clear-cut sector, have increasingly to be seen as hybrids, combining varying balances of resources and mixes of governance principles usually associated with the market, the state, and the civil society.

This collection of essays and critical commentary introduces the reader to developments in the European 'third sector.' As is well known among analysts of welfare policy there, the West European welfare state has been in trouble for at least two decades because of budget stringency and dissatisfaction with the quality and scope of services, as well as broader developments such as the integration of formerly socialist Central and Eastern European states, the decline of western social democratic parties, and the privatization/commercialization of much welfare provision. The editors posit a distinctly European view of the third sector in Europe, one that is based on empirical observations and a 'historical dynamic' perspective focusing on developments within specific societies. Thus, they reject the applicability to European conditions of American analytical categories, based on US experience, and contend that the American forprofit/non-profit binary distinction and emphases on government and market failures do not fit Europe's history or present reality. Rather, their analyses reflect the frequency of profit and surplus sharing in Europe's third sector, the unique historical experiences of Western European societies, and the key roles of sociological and political perspectives among European analysts, policy makers, and the general public. With such concepts in mind, they examine the evolution of various types of third sector institutions across a number of European societies-for example, associations, cooperatives, mutual aid societies, charities, charitable foundations, and voluntary agencies. Their launch point is the idea of a social economy in which the state, the market, and the third sector interact rather than operate independently. The third sector is not subordinate to the other two; it is not something outside the normal operations of society, polity, and economy. Rather, it is intermediary in a system of many types of embedded civil society institutions. Indeed, Evers and LaVille reject the idea of a single civil society, asserting that there are many types of civil societies. In their view, the third sector holds a coordinate place in society and may operate in concert

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This article presents a conceptional framework which analyses the third sector as a part of a mixed welfare system, otherwise made up of the market, the state and the informal private household spheres. From this perspective, the third sector appears as a dimension of the public space in civil societies: an intermediate area rather than a clear-cut sector. Third sector organisations are understood as polyvalent organisations whose social and political roles can be as important as their economic ones; they are portrayed as hybrids, intermeshing resources and rationales from different sectors. In present policies of "welfare pluralism' the emphasis is consequently more on 'synergetic' mixes of resources and rationales than on mere issues of substitution processes between different sectors of provision. The last section discusses the potential distinguishing features of such policies with respect to 'pluralist" approaches which try to safeguard the conventional hierarchies in a mixed economy of welfare.

The effort to strengthen social cohesion and lower social inequalities is among Europe's main policy challenges. At the urban level, these great challenges become visible and tangible, which in many senses makes cities a microcosm of society. It means that local welfare systems are at the forefront of the struggle to address this challenge-and they are far from winning. While the statistics show some positive signs, the overall picture still shows sharp and sometimes rising inequalities, a loss of social cohesion and failing policies of integration and inclusion. When we focus on specific groups in society (e.g. migrants), the situation is even more dire. It is clear that new ideas and approaches to tackle these very wicked problems are needed. Contrary to what is sometimes thought, a lack of bottom-up innovation is not the issue in itself. European cities are teeming with new ideas, initiated by citizens, professionals and policymakers. There are by now many examples of innovation, paraded by think tanks and policymakers as tomorrow's answers. This is certainly promising. Yet this altogether too rosy picture obscures some of the drawbacks,

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Both the UK and German governments have sought to expand child-care provision. There is some evidence of convergence between the two countries in respect of changes in governance as well, but we suggest that the differences remain more striking. The paper draws on national-level data and local case-studies in both countries. We comment on the nature of the expansion of child care and, briefly, on the degree of commitment to it, before exploring the operation of the mixed economy of child care in each country and the relationship between local and central government. We seek the explanation for the differences we observe in the articulation between these two key modes of governance.