Public Policy In The Community

Bol

'Community' continues to attract the attention of policy makers and scholars. Taking account of changes since the publication of the first edition, this new edition explores the challenges of empowering communities and assesses the lessons for policy and practice of community-based approaches to social disadvantage and exclusion. The idea of community involvement and empowerment has become central to politics in recent years. Governments, keen to reduce public spending and increase civic involvement, believe active communities are essential for tackling a range of social, economic and political challenges, such as crime, sustainable development and the provision of care.Public Policy in the Community examines the way that community and the ideas associated with it – civil society, social capital, mutuality, networks – have been understood and applied from the 1960s to the present day. Marilyn Taylor examines the issues involved in putting the community at the heart of policy making, and considers the political and social implications of such a practice. Drawing on a wide range of relevant examples from around the world, the book considers the success of existing approaches and the prospects for further developments. Thoroughly updated to reflect advances in research and practice, the new edition of this important text gives a state-of-the-art assessment of the place of community in public policy.

Bol Partner

The community is seen by many as the solution to a range of challenges: social, political and economic exclusion and polarization, crime and moral decline, the caring crisis, and sustainable development. But communities are complex phenomena and ideas of community empowerment contain many tensions and contradictions. This text explores the challenges involved in empowering communities and assesses the lessons for policy and practice from the experience of some three decades of community-based approaches to social disadvantage and exclusion.