Suchergebnisse

Le projet de Big Society a été l'une des trois priorités du Premier ministre David Cameron après son élection en 2010. Rarement un gouvernement n'avait donné une telle importance à la société civile et aux communautés locales. L'article retrace l'évolution de cette politique publique opaque et finalement abandonnée. Une attention particulière est accordée au rôle du Community Organisers Progamme, l'un des volets les plus abouti, mais tout aussi ambigu, au sein du projet de Big Society. L'article présente une analyse critique de l'efficacité atteinte par ce projet en particulier quant à son objectif déclaré d'assurer un renforcement durable de la participation des citoyens à la gouvernance locale en accordant un rôle plus important à la société civile.

We write this article on radicalizing community practice and education in the midst of an ongoing global economic crisis related to the neoconservative and neoliberal strategies that have dominated the world stage for more than thirty years. As the Scottish referendum recently demonstrated, participatory forms of grassroots social change have become a possibility again. The referendum revealed that making the case for democratic initiatives which recognize the failures of neoliberal policies has become easier in the contemporary context. We are not, however, naïve about the prospects of change. Crises can result, as with the origins of neoliberalism in the 1970s, in simply new forms of a reasserted class power. And crises can, and certainly do, bring about surges in reactionary and xenophobic (usually anti-immigrant) politics and social movements. The lessons we proposed five years ago in Contesting Community are timelier than ever. The opportunity exists for the development of new theories and practices in and about community efforts.

The recent proliferation of community-based responses to urban problems has been characterized by a shift away from protest tactics to more moderate approaches of building community and consensus, developing social capital, and identifying and improving local assets. This case study examines the persistence and effectiveness of protest tactics in a campaign by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now against H&R Block around predatory tax preparation practices. It reveals the potential of direct action, especially when local protests are coordinated nationally. This combination helps to transcend the inherent limits of both community-based activism and national-oriented advocacy efforts.

Objective: This study evaluated the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now's (ACORN) efforts to increase the uptake of families claiming the earned income tax credit through door-to-door canvassing and managing free tax preparation clinics in three pilot cities. Method: The mixed-method program evaluation included administrative record review, a telephone survey (N = 1,063), and individual and focus group interviews. Results: During the 2003 tax year, ACORN prepared taxes at no charge for 3,850 families who collected a total of $4 million in earned income tax credit and other tax credits. In two pilot cities, ACORN led all other free sites in number of returns filed. Canvassing and word of mouth were the most productive marketing tools for the free tax preparation sites. Conclusions: Canvassing appears to be effective outreach in getting families to take advantage of free tax preparation. ACORN's approach to combining services and direct action organizing appears to be a good fit and sustainable.

AbstractAs the realm of the community has grown increasingly important in the contemporary political economy, the theoretical debates surrounding community have also grown in importance and volume. Too often this literature has been either celebratory or dismissive; either romanticizing the concept and thereby elevating it to primary rank as the focal point of societal initiatives, or objecting to its regulated limits and contradictions and thereby dismissing its importance and political utility. There are important contributions being made by both those who dismiss community and those who celebrate it. But for those interested in understanding the potential for emancipatory social change in the contemporary political economy of neoliberalism there are also severe limitations imposed by these perspectives. After critiquing these literatures and debates, we put forward an understanding of community that is neither dismissive nor celebratory, but instead argues that communities need to be understood as simultaneously products of both their larger, and largely external, contexts, and the practices, organizations and relations that take place within them. Thus, communities, because of their central place in capitalist political economies, can be vital arenas for social change. But they are also arenas that are constrained in their capacities to host such efforts.