The book explores comparatively the role of non-profit organizations in conditions of social and economic change. The focus of the study is an investigation of the proposition that non-profit organizations provide sites and processes for enhancing active citizenship, invigorating the public sphere and extending political participation. The study explores the economic constraints on voluntary associations and argues that they can function as ‘schools of democracy’. This book is the first national study of the third-sector in Australia, but its conclusions have a general relevance to deregulated welfare societies in Europe and North America.