Civil society: towards a radical understanding Paul Bunyan - Edge Hill University July 13 th 2012

Civil society: three sector model State Market Civil Society

Neo-liberalism  Harvey (2005:2) defines neo-liberalism as “... a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can be best advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedom, characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such activities”.

Neo-Liberalism and Civil Society The damaging effect of neo-liberalism upon civil society has been examined by writers in many different ways. Among others, key themes addressed include:-  the colonisation of the ‘lifeworld’ by the ‘systemworld’ (Habermas, 1984);  the corrosive personal consequences of work under neo-liberal forms of capitalism (Sennett, 1998);  the depoliticizing of much of the practice associated with the third sector and the ‘hollowing out’ and loss of much of what made the sector distinct from the state and market (DeFilippis, Fisher & Shragge, 2010);  the consolidation of neo-liberal hegemony through the propensity of its proponents ‘to put language to work’ (Garrett, 2009:3).

‘Social capital’ and ‘partnership’ Social capital : “....the remarkable absence of power and politics” (Navarro, 2010) evident in Putnam’s communitarian approach and the consequent depoliticization of his analysis. Putnam’s use of economic categories and his understanding of social action and well-being as depending upon people’s resourcefulness through the networks they develop, to accumulate capital, whether it be social, physical or monetary, is derived, Navarro argues, from the dominant orthodox economic model, i.e. neo-liberalism. Partnership “Partnership conceived as a formal neo-liberal policy mechanism……required the private, public and third sectors to work together and provided the legitimacy for the spread of private sector practices into the public and voluntary sectors, in the process significantly restructuring internal and external relations in and between these different sectors” (Bunyan, 2012).

Civility and associational life  Evers (2010: 114) asks the question of where civility and civicness comes from: “It is not - as often assumed - exclusively related to the multitude of associations in society. Such a notion is seriously flawed since it leaves out the constitutive role of the public sphere associations learn about civility and respect for it by the fact that they operate in such a sphere; it is a forum wherein they have to legitimate their actions” (2010:114).  Evers (2010:116) dismisses notion of a ‘civil society sector’: “Civility and civicness would not then have a natural privileged link with one special area, the third sector. It would rather be a quality that results from the interplay of the various sectors and institutional system. The degree to which they can be shaped by social movements and political forces sets the conditions for civility and civicness”.

Towards a Radical Model

References  Bunyan, P. (2012) Partnership, the Big Society and community organizing: between romanticizing, problematizing and politicizing community, Community Development Journal, Advance Access published April , Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal: Oxford  DeFilippis, J., Fisher, R. and Shragge, E. (2010) Contesting Community: The Limits and Potential of Local Organizing, Rutgers University Press: New York.  Evers (2010) Observations on incivility: blind spots in third sector research and policy, Voluntary Sector review, 2010, Vol. 1:  Garrett, P. M. (2009) Transforming Children’s Services? Social Work, Neo-liberalism and the ‘Modern’ World, Open University Press/McGraw Hill Education, Maidenhead, UK.  Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action. translated by Thomas McCarthy, Cambridge: Polity  Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press: Oxford.  Navarro, V. (2002) A Critique of Social Capital, International Journal of Health Services, 2002, Volume 32, Number 3:  Sennett, R. (1998) The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the new Capitalism, W.W.Norton & Company: London