Critical Community Sector Theory and Practice: Empowering Citizens and Communities?

Scottish public service reform articulates the key aspirations of collaborative governance (Bryson et al., 2014; Christie Commission, 2011; Escobar, 2017): local government leading a diversity of partnerships and participation; a focus on working with ‘wicked’, complex social problems and in search of a more equitable society; an eclectic, pragmatic approach to public service management and democratic leadership; and, citizens as problem-solvers and co-creators. The key narrative for this ‘Scottish Approach’ (Christie Commission, 2011) advocates for varieties of empowerment – service-users, citizens, frontline staff, communities of place and interest – as catalysts for change; and through leadership, co-production and local stakeholder democratic accountability. It also highlights the potential of local community organisations to lead on independent actions and plans outside of traditional partnerships with the state. What Works Scotland has been funded by an academic research council and the Scottish Government to support and explore critically this developing collaborative governance on the ground. This research programme is extensive and multi-faceted, and investigations include: action research to support and consider developing collaborative governance within multi-agency public service partnerships (Henderson & Bland, forthcoming); and, discursive policy (and practice) analysis with the community sector (not-for-profit locally-controlled organisations) and policy-makers to consider the potential of multi-purpose, community-led anchor organisations to engage with and catalyse public service reform alongside their ‘natural’ concerns for community actions and activism (Hutchison & Cairns, 2010; Henderson & McWilliams, 2017; Henderson, Revell & Escobar, forthcoming). Advocates for collaborative governance argue for the value of strong local and regional state structures but, crucially, counter-balanced by strong local civil society bodies (Ansell et al., 2017). Whilst, those advocating for the community sector also argue for local democratic and collective strength, but articulated as a local and progressive mutualism (Pearce, 2009; Henderson & McWilliams, 2017). Such a progressive localism seeks to challenge neo-liberal assumptions and strategies of community crisis management and austerity localism (Cochrane, 2007; Featherstone et al., 2012) Henderson & McWilliams (2017) draw from Cumbers et al. (2010; Katz, 2004) to argue that community anchor organaisation should work for: ‘resilience’ – building local community strength and networks; ‘re-working’ – seeking to use existing policy opportunities to build local democratic organisations and practice; and ‘resistance’ – seeking to challenge neo-liberal market orthodoxies and exploitation. By drawing from the empirical investigations above (Henderson & Bland, forthcoming; Henderson, Revell & Escobar, forthcoming), illustrations are given of community anchor organisations facilitating both: citizen engagement with state structures and focused on concerns for the ‘public good’; and local community empowerment and activism concerned for the ‘common good’ both locally and further afield. In the process, challenges of and for critical theory and practice are surfaced and examined at the interfaces between state and ‘community’ and between citizenship and activism.