The Politics of Civil Society: Big Society and Small Government - Second Edition

In this fully revised edition of his groundbreaking book, Fred Powell looks behind “the mirror of power” to discover the real civil society—or Big Society—that lies beneath it. Articulating three forms of civil society—radical, liberal, and conservative—he examines a complex interplay between state and community, arguing that citizens contend for power via civil society. This is both a historic pursuit dating to antiquity and a contemporary democratic struggle between competing visions of modernity, the stakes of which are no less than “real” politics themselves as experienced by everyday citizens. The second edition includes a new concluding chapter on practical and policy implications.