Civil Society in an Age of Uncertainty: Institutions, Governance and Existential Challenges

Abstract:

This book explores how the uncertainties of the 21st century present existential challenges to civil society. These include changing modes of governance (through devolution and Brexit), austerity, migration, growing digital divides, issues of (mis)trust and democratic confidence, welfare delivery and the COVID-19 pandemic and the contemporary threat to minority languages and cultures.

Presenting original empirical findings, this book brings together core strands of social theory to provide a new way of understanding existential challenges to the form and function of civil society. It highlights pressing social issues and transferable lessons that will inform policy and practice in today’s age of uncertainty.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction: Locating civil society | Paul Chaney & Ian Rees Jones
2. Existential challenges | Paul Chaney & Ian Rees Jones
3. Civil society and the governance of city region economic development | David Beel, Martin Jones & Ian Rees Jones
4. Civil society, pandemic and the crisis of welfare: exploring mixed economy models of welfare in domiciliary adult social care in a devolved UK | Paul Chaney & Christala Sophocleous
5. The contemporary threat to minority languages and cultures: civil society, young people and Celtic language use in Scotland and Wales | Rhys Jones, Elin Royles, Fiona O'Hanlon & Lindsay Paterson
6. Digital threat or opportunity? Local civil society in an age of global inter-connectivity | Michael Woods, Taulant Guma & Sophie Yarker
7. Democratic decline? Civil society and trust in government | Alistair Cole, Ian Stafford & Dominic Heinz
8. Xenophobia, hostility and austerity: European migrants and civil society in Wales | Stephen Drinkwater, Taulant Guma & Rhys Dafydd Jones
9. Meeting the challenge? Prospects and perils for civil society in the twenty-first century | Paul Chaney & Ian Rees Jones

Further information:

This publication has been edited by Paul Chaney and Ian Rees Jones.