Description: After nearly two decades of confusion, a reborn collectivism has begun to challenge the neo-liberal orthodoxy which has shaped British public policy since the 1970s. But this new collectivism differs radically from the state-centred collectivism developed, largely by and through the Labour Party, in the inter-war and post-war years. It is pluralistic, diverse and internationalist. It looks outwards to the institutions of global economic governance and to the supranational institutions of the European Union, and downwards to localities and regions. It embraces the traditional liberal concern with constitutional checks and balances to guard against the abuse of state power, and the traditional Christian democratic concern with subsidiarity and power sharing. Above all, it seeks a vibrant civil society, with flourishing intermediate institutions, some public, some private and some mixed, standing between the state and the individual. While addressing different aspects of this theme in each chapter, the book as a whole stakes out the terms of a new collectivism appropriate to the needs of the next century.

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