Bringing ideology back in: The erosion of political innocence in English third sector policy

Journal of Political Ideologies

Volumn 15, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 241-258

  Kendall, Jeremy ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KENT   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL SOCIETY; CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK; CULTURE; POLICY DEVELOPMENT; POLITICAL DISCOURSE; POLITICAL IDEOLOGY; POLITICAL THEORY;

EID: 77957962067     PISSN: 13569317     EISSN: 14699613     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13569317.2010.513859     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. M. Freeden, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); cf. M. Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
2. R. Barker, Political Ideas in Modern Britain (London: Routledge, 1997).
3. Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 1.
4. Following the TSEP study (J. Kendall (Ed.), Handbook of Third Sector Policy in Europe: Multi-level Processes and Organised Civil Society (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2009)), theoretically "horizontal' refers to concepts/beliefs or policies/practices/actions which are not confined to within vertical policy fields (like education, health or social care) but which are.... held to be relevant/applied as a matter of "generic' policy.
5. The evidence base for this paper coincides largely with that assembled for the TSEP study, and thus includes a review of secondary sources (a wide range of policy documents, and academic literature relating to third sector policy) with primary data gathered in interviews.
6. See J. Kendall, 'The third sector and the policy process in the UK: ingredients in a hyper-active horizontal policy environment', in Kendall, op. cit., Ref. 4, pp. 67-94.
7. For example, see G. Himmelfarb, The Roads to Modernity (London: Vintage Books, 2008).
8. Kendall, op. cit., Ref. 5.
9. G. Thomas and J. Kendall, 'The legal position of the voluntary sector', in J. Kendall and M. Knapp (Eds) The Voluntary Sector in the UK (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996); T. Garton, The Regulation of Organised Civil Society (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2009).
10. M. Smerdon (Ed.), The First Principle of Voluntary Action: Essays on the Independence of the Voluntary Sector from Government in Canada, England, Germany, Northern Ireland, Scotland, United States of America and Wales, Strengthening the Voluntary Sector (London: Baring Foundation, 2009), Working Paper No. 3.
11. J. Kendall, The Voluntary Sector: Comparative Perspectives in the UK (London: Routledge, 2003).
12. This is actually a crude over-simplification from both a voluntary sector and ideological perspective (M. Brenton, The Voluntary Sector in British Social Services (Harlow: Longman, 1985); R. Leach, Political Ideology in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002)). However, it is fully consistent with recognition of the importance of rhetorical simplification in creating and sustaining an ideological position: the standards and priorities of ideological architects differ from those of historical analysts.
13. Most recently, see M. Zimmeck, "The Compact ten years on: government's approach to partnership with the voluntary and community sector in England', Voluntary Sector Review, (1) (2010), pp. 125-133.
14. Freeden, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction, op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 56-57.
15. The latter made explicit the inclusion of cooperatives and mutuals; and former, by openly recognizing "community groups' and emphasizing small as well as medium-sized and large organizations in recognition of their increasingly evident empirical significance.
16. Freeden, op. cit., Ref. 1.
17. Kendall, op. cit., Ref. 5.
18. L. Salamon and H. K. Anheier, 'Social origins of civil society: explaining the nonprofit sector crossnationally', Voluntas, 9(3) (1998), pp. 213-248.
19. N. Rosenblum and R. Post (Eds), Civil Society and Government (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).
20. M. Thompson, R. Ellis and A. Wildavsky, Cultural Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990); C. Hood, The Art of the State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
21. Kendall, op. cit., Ref. 10.
22. Nationally, the Conservative party is now situated within the mainstream we have been portraying. In particular, in 2003, it committed to the Compact, and has since gone much further, especially in the run up to the 2010 election, marking a clear u-turn from its position when previously power under John Major's leadership (Department for National Heritage, Raising the Voltage (London: Department for National Heritage, 1995)).
23. In delineating a mainstream consensus, we have been referring to the existence of a dominant, sympathetic orientation towards Compact and allied principles. This does not mean that significant political "outliers' or "objectors' cannot be found. On the Right, for example, see R. Whelan, Involuntary Action: How Voluntary is the Voluntary Sector (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1999), including some of the thinking which prompted the Right to be hostile to the Compact between 1995 and 2003; on the Left, see M. Kelly, "It's nothing short of vandalism', The Guardian, 19 March 2008 (available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/19/voluntarysector, accessed 27 July 2009) on the National Coalition of Independent Action (NCIA), and that organization's website. Note.
24. That is, there was a non-trivial and costly process of dialogue, debate and "political construction' with the representative groups of organizations inside the "third sector', but not clearly seen previously as part of the "voluntary and community sector' (HM Treasury and Cabinet Office, The Future of the Third Sector in Economic and Social Regeneration: Supporting Evidence: Mutuals and Co-operatives, available at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/third_sector/assets/mutuals_co_operatives.pdf, 2007, accessed 24 July 2009). Note.
25. The "tool kit' of policy implementation with which actors were being asked to deal was, we have seen, primarily "soft': persuasion rather than overt coercion or fiat. Arguments about the limits of the market and the state without support from the third sector will have tended to have come into play, and these discussions necessarily have at least some implicit ideational dimension.
26. Kendall, op. cit., Ref. 10, Chapter 3; Zimmeck, op. cit., Ref. 12.
27. E. Carmel and J. Harlock, 'Instituting the third sector as a governable terrain: procurement and performance in the UK', Policy & Politics, 36(2) (2008), pp. 157-171.
28. House of Commons Public Administration Committee, Public Services and the Third Sector: Rhetoric and Reality, Volumes one and two, HC 112-I and HC 112-II (London: The Stationery Office, 2008); House ofCommons Public Accounts Committee, Building the Capacity of the Third Sector, Thirty Seventh Report of the Session 2008-09, HC 436 (London: The Stationery Office, 2009).
29. J. Kendall, "Losing political innocence? Finding a place for ideology in understanding the development of recent English third sector policy', Paper presented at VSSN-NCVO Research Conference, September 2009 (Third Sector Research Centre, TSRC Working Paper 13, forthcoming), available at: http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/Research/TheoryandPolicyTP/tabid/507/Default.aspx (accessed 28 July 2010); J. Kendall and M. Taylor, "On the interdependence between politics and policy in the shaping of English horizontal third sector initiative', in Note.
30. B. Gidron and M. Bar (Eds) Policy Initiatives Toward the Third Sector in International Perspective (New York: Springer Publishers, 2009), pp. 189-212.
31. N. Deakin, 'The perils of partnership', in J. Davis Smith, R. Hedley and C. Rochester (Eds) Introduction to the Voluntary Sector (London: Routledge, 1995); Kendall and Taylor, op. cit., Ref. 28.
32. ACEVO, Replacing the State? The Case for Third Sector Public Service Delivery, Association for Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, London, 2003; A. Milburn, The Voluntary Sector: A Partner in Reform, 6 May 2004 (London: The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations).
33. D. Brindle, 'All fall down', Society Guardian (20 February 2008), available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/20/voluntarysector.futurebuildersengland (accessed 22 July 2009).
34. M. Zimmeck, 'Government and volunteering: towards a history of policy and practice', in C. Rochester, S. Howlett and A. Ellis Paine (Eds) Volunteering and Society in the Twenty First Century (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2009).
35. W. Stevenson, Gordon Brown Speeches 1997-2006 (London: Bloomsbury, 2006). 34. B. Knight, Voluntary Action (Ovingham and London: CENTRIS, 1993).
36. Kendall and Taylor, op. cit., Ref. 28.
37. D. Miliband, "Putting people in control' (keynote speech) NCVO Annual Conference (London: National Council for Voluntary Organisation, 2006);
38. E. Miliband's evidence, pp. 66-83 in Public Administration Select Committee, vol. II, see Note 27.
39. For more details and full references see J. Kendall, Beyond the Compact in England: policy options in a post-compact world, Paper delivered at ARNOVA Conference, Cleveland, OH, 15 November 2009.
40. There is already potential for more hierarchically styled measures apparent in some of the proposals. For example, there have been suggestions (not yet confirmed) that the Compact could be strengthened by making available hard powers to impose penalty sanctions on agencies which do not comply with its provisions; while the plan for "National Citizen Service', if it were to involve any arrangements for compulsion, or the threat of sanctions involving a strong control element from central government, would also therefore signal the retention of elements of a relatively dirigiste approach.
41. D. G. Green, Community Without Politics, Choices in Welfare, No. 27 (London: Institute for Economic Affairs Health and Welfare Unit, 1996).
42. Kendall, op. cit., Ref. 37.