| Abstrakt: |
This article analyses the impact of the structural shift to neo-liberal governance on democratic engagement by the community and voluntary sector. The article argues that a particular aspect in the processes of neo-liberal re-structuring, the move to a contract state, generates tension for the community and voluntary sector. The contract state environment on the one hand leads to a process of democratic inclusion of the community and voluntary sector but in its imposition has the dialectical effect of constraining democratic debate by producing an environment of fear, compulsion, and exclusion. To understand the impact of the structural shift on the community and voluntary sector, a cornerstone of civil society, we surveyed 153 New Zealand organisations. New Zealand is recognised as having moved faster and more deeply into neo-liberal modes of governance than other English-speaking democracies, yet there is little empirical analysis of the impact of this on democratic systems and public debate. This article unpacks this question of the way democratic agency is shaped by the structures of the neoliberal contract state by explaining why such an examination is necessary; setting out existing literature on the role of the community and voluntary sector in public debate in New Zealand and the gap in terms of empirical analysis; placing the New Zealand case in the context of roll-out and roll-back neo-liberalism (Peck et al., 2012); and finally, by moving to acknowledge the voices of the community and voluntary sector respondents who engaged in analysing the state they find themselves in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
