Published
Apr 24, 2013Page count
224 pagesEdition
2nd EditionISBN
978-1447307143Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
Apr 24, 2013Page count
224 pagesEdition
2nd EditionISBN
978-1447307150Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
Apr 24, 2013Page count
224 pagesISBN
978-1447309499Imprint
Policy PressPublished
Apr 24, 2013Page count
224 pagesISBN
978-1447309505Imprint
Policy PressThe 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?.