33. A Breather
In this Substack, I have spent a lot of time setting out a different way of thinking about civil society, what it is, how it works, and what it does. I know from feedback that readers want less -cut to the chase and tell us why any of this matters- and more -about the underlying evidence, and stories about how this works on the ground. I will attend to this in the next iteration.
The breadth of focus on civil society is intended to inform a broader argument on the relationship between civil society and state (and in a future iteration the role of capital and corporations and religion). Over the next few weeks, I will attempt to land this argument with four sections:
(Starting on Monday), setting out the civil society part of a general theory of the relationship of civil society and state
Exploring the state, what it is, how it works, and what it does
Showing how the state enhances and undermines civil society
Introducing the idea and practical examples of relational social policy to rebalance civil society and state, and
How extended democracy can create the conditions conducive to relational social policy.