From Austerity to Abundance?: Creative Approaches to Coordinating the Common Good

This book explores how civil society and governments employ transformative tactics of direct engagement to coordinate efforts toward the common good, highlighting alternatives to neoliberal austerity measures. Collaborative governance and coproduction take on characteristics of social movements, where indirect citizen engagement in public policy making and administrative implementation is seen as the collective pursuit of human flourishing and abundance.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 224 pages
\n Publication date: 12 November 2018
\n Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
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This comprehensive volume delves into the diverse strategies employed by civil society and governments to coordinate their efforts towards the common good. The chapters shed light on alternative approaches that diverge from the neoliberal austerity measures that limit coproduction to a cost-saving tactic. Instead of resorting to simplistic load-shedding and unfunded partnerships, collaborative governance and coproduction are evolving to resemble social movements, where indirect citizen engagement in public policy-making and administrative implementation is recognized as the collective pursuit of human flourishing and abundance. These approaches challenge the established power dynamics and standard operating procedures. Civil society is reclaiming its origins from the more informal mechanisms of social movements, and as governments seek to engage these groups, they must adopt a new collaborative stance that views power as a generative force when shared rather than hoarded through hierarchical or competitive dominance. This book showcases how, through this transformative process, genuine public value can be generated.

\n Weight: 436g\n
Dimension: 160 x 239 x 19 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781787144668\n \n