In this paper, I extend the framework of entangled political economy (EPE) to include third sector organizations. Within the literature on EPE, we talk almost exclusively about the admixture between the political and the economic, but it’s unclear where those organizations that are neither political nor economic fit into the framework. What is clear is that these organizations operate within the same social space in which political and economic activity are operating. Individuals within third sector organizations interact regularly with both market and political actors, so can reasonably be thought to be inhabiting an entangled world. Yet thus far, the EPE literature has little accounted for individuals in this alternative sphere. By examining third sector organizations within the EPE context, I hope to be able to shed light on some of the dynamics that make particular types of entanglement more or less pernicious. We generally tend to think that third sector organizations serve those whom they’re trying to help better than similar government organizations. But for some larger, more bureaucratic third sector organizations, this might not unequivocally be the case. More localized government organizations, who have stronger insights into the individuals and communities they’re trying to help, can in some cases achieve better results than larger, more bureaucratic third sector organizations trying to solve the same problems. If we’re serious about shedding the additive language and thinking of traditional political economy for the language and framework of entanglement, then we can’t automatically blame the relative size of government involvement in market or non-market processes for creating problems. Incorporating the third sector into the framework of EPE can help us to determine some of the institutional problems that make entanglement more or less problematic. I use specific examples from the provision of poverty relief to probe these questions.
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