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In this collection, innovative and eminent social and policy analysts, including Colin Crouch, Anna Coote, Jeremy Gilbert, Grahame Thompson and Ted Benton, challenge the failing but still dominant ideology and policies of neo-liberalism. The book suggests extending and deepening democracy and participation into economic and cultural institutions for greater material and social equality to reinforce established social democratic principles of redistribution and public investment. Updated to assess the Brexit and Trump upsurges, the editors’ synthesis offers a framework for a revitalised social democracy. It links concepts such as Polanyi’s ‘commons’ and Habermas’s ’lifeworld’ to the attempts by social justice, feminist, environmentalist movements to advance equality through democratisation and market accountability to civil society. The lifeworld of voluntary associations, families and communities is proposed as the logical starting point for radical transformation, not in ‘blue-sky’ projects, but in existing alternatives like: community organisations, municipal enterprises, mutual and cooperative societies, social movement organisations, and trade-union branches. As well as the more informal networks in which popular involvement is already shaping solutions to the human needs which neoliberalism frustrates. The collection critically dissects, but goes beyond the ideologies and institutions of neoliberalism. It identifies the agents which could promote an alternative political economy for the UK; one based on local and international models of democratic governance to rival and displace prevailing market and corporate dominance. Its combination of critique, analysis and political engagement could be invaluable for those teaching, studying and campaigning for transformative political, economic and social policies.

Indigeneity is a politics of potential. It allows indigenous peoples to think and pursue political aspirations beyond colonial victimhood. The politics of indigeneity is a theory of human agency. It is closely intertwined with discourses of reconciliation, self-determination and sovereignty. This book explores these discourses’ significance for contemporary indigenous politics. It uses them to examine just terms of indigenous citizenship in three contemporary post-settler states. The book argues for differentiated liberal citizenship as a way of allowing indigenous peoples to share in the public sovereignty of the nation-state while, at the same time, sharing a meaningful political authority vested in indigenous institutions. It tests neo-colonial understandings of power, politics and justice. The book’s comparative focus is unique. It compares the Australasian states with Fiji to show that historical constraints on political authority are not diminished with the withdrawal of the colonial power alone. Nor does the restoration of collective indigenous majority status, on its own, serve meaningful self-determination. Conversely, negative power relationships in Australia and New Zealand are not simply a function of minority status in majoritarian democracies. The comparison shows that the claims of indigeneity must hold equally well whatever the post-colonial indigenous population status.

There is a widespread recognition that Africa has to embark on strategies for sustainable and inclusive development. African economies have to evolve in their levels of development including the associated structure of factor endowments. However, each such structure requires corresponding infrastructure (both “hard” and “soft”) to circumscribe its operations and transactions. The type of infrastructure which is needed and what type of infrastructure would work for sustainable development more than others needs to be delineated. This book gives a sense of what exist and what Africa really needs in terms of its infrastructure. The contributors explore the challenges and opportunities for infrastructure development in Africa to take cognisance of and ensure balance between ‘what should be the case’ and ‘what is’. The book considers a wide range of pertinent issues such as corruption, tight budgets (RBM) and poor incentives that bred the tendency for poor maintenance and infrastructure service delivery and the subsequent deterioration of business confidence and related private sector engagement. Indeed, the arrival of other players such as China presents not just opportunities but also challenges for the development of infrastructure (in particular) and Africa (in general).