La dimensió privada i la dimensió pública de la societat civil. Les entitats d'iniciativa social d'atenció a la discapacitat

This doctoral thesis analyses third-sector care of the intellectually handicapped and the sector’s function of providing social services that are a public responsibility in conjunction with the state and the market.
On the basis of the relationship between state and civil society, the resurgence of civil society in the democratization processes of modern societies is analysed as a representation of the recuperation of their public dimension. This dimension is connected to that of political society, which was removed from the state during the process in which the state was assimilated into the government apparatus.
An ethnographic approach was used to analyse three stages in the development of these entities: charismatic, professionalizing and value-generating. The organizational structure, services and relationships are analysed in search of a balance between two management logics that lead to a double institutional isomorphism: public administration and commercial company.