Policy Press

The Politics of Civil Society

Big Society and Small Government

By Fred Powell

Published

Apr 24, 2013

Page count

224 pages

Edition

2nd Edition

ISBN

978-1447307143

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Apr 24, 2013

Page count

224 pages

Edition

2nd Edition

ISBN

978-1447307150

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Apr 24, 2013

Page count

224 pages

ISBN

978-1447309499

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Apr 24, 2013

Page count

224 pages

ISBN

978-1447309505

Imprint

Policy Press
The Politics of Civil Society

The politics of civil society is an original, thought provoking analysis which challenges one-dimensional neoliberal thinking about civil society, and seeks to rediscover its radical roots. The original edition shifted the scholarly debate onto the new ground, offering an accessible and compelling analysis of one of the central issues of our times.

In the second, revised edition of this indispensable book, the author looks behind 'the mirror of power' to discover the reality of civil society - or 'Big Society', as it has become known. He finds not one but three forms of civil society: radical, liberal and conservative. In complex interplay between state and civil society, the author argues that citizens contend for power through civil society. This is both an age-long pursuit dating from antiquity and a contemporary democratic struggle between competing visions of modernity that determines the 'real' in politics, as experienced by the citizens. The book will have wide appeal to a broad cross-disciplinary audience.

Fred Powell is Professor of Social Policy and Dean of Social Science at the National University of Ireland, Cork. He has published extensively on civil society, political thought and citizen participation.

Introduction;

Doublethink: the Big Society, Small Government Debate;

The renaissance of civil society;

Modernity, civil society and civic virtue;

Radical Civil Society, Early Social Movements and the Socialisation of the State;

Nietzsche’s Revenge: Totalitarian Big Society;

Rights talk, New Social Movements and Civic Revolts;

American Exceptionalism, Multicultural Civil Society and Plato’s Noble Lie;

Global civil society: myth or reality?.