By Sam Kirwan
As part of work I am doing on the work of Citizens Advice, I was asked to respond to the paper “States of Imagination” by John Clarke and Janet Newman, part of the Kilburn Manifesto. It is a paper that asks questions of the state and community that we have also looked at as part of our research group, and gave an opportunity to expand from advice work to governance and the contemporary logic of neoliberalism. Yet what it led me to think about most was the nature of democratic authority, and so set out below are my current thoughts on what the paper, and our work, can tell us about this concept.
As part of work I am doing on the work of Citizens Advice, I was asked to respond to the paper “States of Imagination” by John Clarke and Janet Newman, part of the Kilburn Manifesto. It is a paper that asks questions of the state and community that we have also looked at as part of our research group, and gave an opportunity to expand from advice work to governance and the contemporary logic of neoliberalism. Yet what it led me to think about most was the nature of democratic authority, and so set out below are my current thoughts on what the paper, and our work, can tell us about this concept.
What I found interesting about Clarke & Newman's paper is the proposition that to...