Description

By (author) Tam Henry

This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Henry Tam’s Communitarianism brings different strands of communitarian thought together into a critical synthesis, at the centre of which is the ideal of inclusive communities based on the three principles of mutual responsibility, cooperative enquiry, and citizen participation.

Tam shows how communitarian ideas can be applied in practice, addressing key problems in social, economic, and political life, with case studies from the state, business, and voluntary sectors to demonstrate how we can more effectively respond to the major problems facing society.

With key pedagogical features including a timeline of the emergence of key communitarian ideas, diagrams illustrating conceptual differences relating to communitarian, authoritarian and individualist thinking, and a selection of global case studies and further readings, this is the authoritative guide to the theory and practice of Communitarianism.

Table of contents:

Preface to the New Edition
List of Tables and Case Studies
Chapter 1 – What is Communitarianism
Chapter 2 – Communities” Role in Problem-Solving
Chapter 3 – Rethinking Work
Chapter 4 – Rethinking Education
Chapter 5 – Rethinking Security
Chapter 6 – Communitarian Government
Chapter 7 – Communitarian Enterprise
Chapter 8 – Communitarian Civil Society
Chapter 9 – Criticisms of Communitarian Ideas
Chapter 10 – The Challenge to Develop Inclusive Communities
Bibliography
Index

Review quote:
A scholarly overview of the subject combined with an agenda for political practice and reform. The book is an excellent statement of the communitarian approach to politics and citizenship.

Review quote:
This timely book brilliantly demonstrates how both individuals and society benefit from thinking and working together. At a period of growing authoritarian populism its insights are a vital resource for understanding how to break down the barriers communities face, and enable a better world for all.

Review quote:
Henry Tam has executed an important task with this readable and timely book: he unpacks the philosophical, political, sociological, and educational meanings of community. In so doing, he argues that between binaries of authoritarianism and competitive individualism, communitarian ideals are both more humane and central to the human condition. Tam provides a compelling, principled defense of why a re-centering of inclusive community relations and structures in democratic societies is not a nostalgic move backwards, but an essential way forward.

Biographical note:

Henry Tam has been Lecturer at the University of Cambridge; Visiting Professor at Birkbeck, University of London; and Head of Civil Renewal in the UK Government. His books include Time to Save Democracy (2018), The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas (2019), Tomorrow’s Communities (2021), and Who’s Afraid of Political Education (2023).

Promotional headline:
This second editon authoratative guide to Communitarianism brings together political theory with key practical global case studies from the state, business and voluntary sectors.

Feature:
Based on the first edition, which was widely praised as a definitive guide to communitarian theory and practice

Feature:
A broad-ranging and accessible introduction to communitarian ideas and their implications for politics and citizenship

Feature:
Contains key pedagogical features including a timeline of the emergence of key communitarian ideas, diagrams illustrating conceptual differences relating to communitarian, authoritarian and individualist thinking, and a selection of global case studies and further readings