Patterns and influence of state-third sector partnership, which refers to the involvement of third sector organizations in public service delivery are well-documented. State-third sector partnership may take varied forms, including contract-based, collaboration-based as well as form that is based on relational contractual or granting frameworks. Notably, on-the-ground implementation of partnerships relying on relational types of contracts and grants is increasingly recognized as promising middle path but is still understudied. To better understand the ways through which partnership between government and third-sector organizations is exercised with reliance on relational contracts and grants, this study considers a street-level perspective, that is, looking into the day-to-day decisions, activities, and practices through which a public service is directly delivered on the ground to policy clients, termed here as street-level partnership. Based on comparative analysis of eight social services for families in risk in Croatia, study uncovers that the middle path that combines contracts with trust by relying on relational types of contracts and grants is not only already here, but it even has distinctive modalities in practice. Analysis of data collected through focus groups, interviews, and member checking workshops with over 100 actors engaged in the provision of various services for families in risk has uncovered that the nature of state-third sector partnership for the provision of complex services, in a policy setting qualified with state’s necessity for collaboration, tends to unfold toward hybrid modes that are shaped and calibrated at the direct level. Study identifies four different patterns of street-level partnering between government and third-sector organizations, distinguished key mechanism that frames funding of the service and relationship between partners (subcontract vs. grant), and whether direct-delivery practices are established or informal. Closer look at four modes further illuminates that the assessment of results of state-third sector collaboration should acknowledge the innate features of partnerships’ modes.

This article is relevant to the study group by focusing on fluid forms of collaboration. The care professionals is this study seek new, innovative ways of collaborating across professional domains and across organizations to be able to care for clients with combined problems.

In caring for clients with combined problems, various types of professionals are encouraged to work together in new ways to offer their different contributions (Petrakou 2009, Bosch and Mansell 2015, Schot, Tummers et al. 2020). Collaboration is often fluid and professionals are expected to go outside to seek other professionals and organizations to solve complex problems (Morgan, Pullon et al. 2015). This type of collaboration is not institutionalized, therefore, it may be hard to develop routines compared to fixed teams. Knowledge about how frontline professionals work together in noninstitutionalized forms of fluid collaboration is lacking (Schot, Tummers et al. 2020, Bakken and van der Wel 2022). This article addresses this gap by studying how professionals from various disciplines work together in fluid collaborative contexts when caring for clients with combined problems (Croker, Trede et al. 2012, Schot, Tummers et al. 2020). To this end, this empirical research has an iterative design and uses longitudinal qualitative observations and various types of interviews in studying these hard to grasp contexts (Kerrissey, Satterstrom et al. 2020). In the analysis, elements of interprofessional collaboration in healthcare (a.o. bridging gaps, creating spaces) identified by Schot and colleagues (2020) are used as sensitizing concepts to grasp whether and how these or other elements are present in fluid interprofessional contexts. The results report on how these collaborative mechanisms are visible in the three empirical contexts of general practice, mental healthcare and social welfare in the Dutch city of the Hague.

This paper uses the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina to examine international intervention in policy and statebuilding in post-conflict contexts, and to challenge the existing dichotomy of international actors’ presence. It does so by exploring the cases of the Central Election Commission, which international actors left two decades ago, and the Constitutional Court, where international actors remain to this day. This outcome is puzzling as the original goal of interventions was to help build state institutions in the aftermath of the war and thereafter hand them over to local agents. In that sense, the success of intervention is measured by the exit of international actors and its transition to local agents. Rather than looking at these cases simply as discretionary decisions by the international actors, I offer a more nuanced exploration of cross-sectional exit, by presenting an innovative analytical framework, which looks at both the supply of (actors intervening), and demand (local agencies) for international intervention. By doing so, I offer a causal explanation of variation in the speed and nature of international withdrawal. However, in order to look at the interrelationship between supply and demand, I argue that we need to disaggregate the two sides of the equation, and look at them within the dynamics of each category. Using Bosnia and Herzegovina as my case study, I challenge the notion of local agency being unified and demonstrate that the local actors can have diverging and contradictory interests; I demonstrate that different local agencies developed dissimilar relations and collaborations with the involved international actors, which led to different on the ground solutions. The research included a two-month posting in Sarajevo, BIH; where +20 interviews with relevant stakeholders were conducted. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the individual complexities and interdependencies of domestic and international actors in the initiation and perpetuation of international intervention, and to show how this shapes international intervention and the exit of international actors.