Beyond policy failures: The dependency-constraint paradox in the government-nonprofit relationship addressing violence against women

Despite increased governmental efforts and nonprofit involvement, violence against women continues to rise in Israel, raising questions about the effectiveness and implementation of policies to combat it. Using the political nexus triad framework and public value failure theory, we analyse how political and bureaucratic factors affect nonprofits’ efforts in addressing this issue. Through directed content analysis of 48 nonprofit organisations and multiple government sources from 2016 to 2024, we explore the systemic barriers impeding the effective response of nonprofits to combatting violence against women. Our findings reveal a fundamental tension we term the “dependency-constraint paradox”: while government increasingly depends on nonprofits for service delivery, its centralised, hierarchical approach simultaneously limits these organisations’ ability to influence policy design. This paradox is evident in multiple areas, including the limited inclusion of nonprofits in policy development despite possessing expertise in the field, bureaucratic constraints on service innovations, resource dependency without decision-making authority, persistent service gaps despite centralised management, and data collection without strategic implementation of the findings. Each dimension represents specific public value failures that collectively undermine the effectiveness of nonprofits. This study illuminates how structural conditions in neo-Weberian state systems simultaneously necessitate nonprofit intervention while constraining its impact. The findings provide insights for reforming government-nonprofit relationships to address complex social problems.