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The coronavirus pandemic has rapidly become a multifaceted global crisis, disrupting economies, livelihoods and ways of life, with significant ramifications for the third sector. This paper seeks to prompt a conversation about third sector research agendas, which might be animated in and beyond coronavirus, focusing primarily on the experience of the sector in the UK but including references globally. After a brief discussion of the acute three-dimensional crisis facing the sector, the paper raises questions for now and later at three interconnected levels: of practice, organisation and society. The paper concludes with a call for critically engaged curiosity about the role and fortunes of the third sector in a time of lockdown and its aftermath.

An earlier article in Voluntary Sector Review examined the UK coalition government's agenda for supporting a stronger civil society (Macmillan, 2011). This article takes the story forward in the unfolding field of third sector infrastructure by considering key developments in the policy context in the intervening years. The specific focus here is market-making in support services, through a discussion of the Big Lottery Fund's 'building capabilities' framework and the promotion of 'demand-led' capacity building.

Despite a largely indifferent and otherwise sceptical public reception, the 'Big Society' has remained a central feature of the Conservative-led coalition's project in the United Kingdom. This article asks what the Big Society might mean for the 'third sector' of voluntary organisations, community groups and social enterprises. The previous Labour government's approach has been characterised as the development of a closer 'partnership' between state and the third sector. However, a partial decoupling may now be under way in the new political and economic context. Theoretically, this might signal a shift away from the idea of interdependence between the state and the third sector, and towards a model involving separate spheres: from partnership to an emergent 'trial separation'. The article draws on Friedrich Hayek's theory of 'spontaneous order', suggesting that the Big Society involves some implicit Hayekian assumptions. It concludes by considering the implications of regarding the third sector in such terms.

Claims for the distinctiveness of third sector organisations are a relatively widespread and familiar feature of third sector commentary and analysis. This paper reviews relevant theoretical and empirical research to examine the idea of distinctiveness, arguing that such claims remain inconclusive. Informed by a view of the third sector as a contested 'field', and drawing on Bourdieu's notion of 'distinction', the paper suggests that research attention should focus additionally on the strategic purpose of claims for distinctiveness, rather than simply continue what might be a 'holy grail' search for its existence. The paper uses this argument to complicate and extend the idea of the third sector as a 'strategic unity', and concludes by suggesting some further lines of enquiry for third sector research.

The relationship between chairs and chief executive officers (CEOs) has been largely neglected in research on nonprofit governance. Yet, a growing body of research on corporate governance in the private and public sectors suggests that this relationship is crucial both to the effective functioning of the board and the leadership of the organization. Much of the research on chair–CEO relationships has used cross-sectional research designs ignoring the fact that these relationships will evolve over time. This article responds to some of these challenges. It presents the results from longitudinal research examining the relationship between the chair and chief executive in a nonprofit organization. It shows how this relationship is "negotiated" and develops over time in response to contextual changes.

By identifying the support needs of voluntary and community organisations, diagnosis is commonly understood as an initial stage of effective and targeted capacity building. This paper offers a broader reflection, suggesting that diagnosis can play two other functions: as a selection mechanism for access to capacity-building resources, but also as a market-making device in bringing together potential providers and would-be customers to discuss an intangible and difficult to describe process of organisational support.

This article offers a critical commentary on the development of commissioning and procurement in criminal justice. We argue that if public services are to effectively meet the wide range of complex needs among offenders, then commissioners need to embrace a 'market stewardship' approach. This should take a whole-system view of the development of a diverse market, attending both to the diversity of providers (supply) and to the diversity of voices articulating needs and influencing service design (demand).

"Der Aufsatz erklärt, wie die Messung der Arbeitslosigkeit durch die Art und Weise der Definition und Zählung von 'Krankheit' durch Sozialversicherungssysteme bestimmt wird. Gestützt auf die Begriffe 'versteckte Krankheit', 'Warteliste', 'versteckte Arbeitslosigkeit' sowie auf empirische Beobachtungen in Großbritannien, zeigt er auf, wie Verlust des Arbeitsplatzes eher zu vermehrter Registrierung von Krankheit als Registrierung von Arbeitslosigkeit führen kann. Er zeigt auch, wie dieser Vorgang von Ort zu Ort und von Land zu Land schwanken kann." (Autorenreferat)