Assessing performance and public value in the hollow state

This chapter briefly describes the emergence of the hollow state, in which government has grown increasingly reliant on nonprofits in public service delivery. As the hollow state has expanded, so too have public demands for nonprofit accountability and performance. Despite these pressures, and increased adoption of performance regimes within the nonprofit sector, we lack answers to two critically important questions, which are the focus of this book: How are nonprofits performing? Does the presence or involvement of nonprofits or third-party actors in a public service improve public outcomes or otherwise add public value? In this chapter, we illustrate how the remaining chapters of the book fit together to help to answer these questions. This chapter also reviews the extensive literature on nonprofit performance, as well as the public values literature that speaks to third-party service delivery.