Communitarianism

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.

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).