The re-signification of state-funded community development in Ireland: A problem of austerity and neoliberal government

Abstract

This article analyses the changing rationalities and techniques through which the Irish state seeks to govern community development; specifically, how the displacement of its flagship Community Development Programme by the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme has been justified and operationalised. Adopting a governmentality perspective, it explains how community development came to be constructed as an anti-poverty strategy and why it should also be understood as a ‘technology of government’. This article argues that the changing governmentalities shaping Irish community development are reflected in a re-problematisation and re-signification of community development’s purposes, rationalities and sources of legitimacy. Under the cover of austerity’s manufactured public spending crisis and new forms of expertise, preoccupations with effectiveness, efficiency and international best practice have intensified, thus demonstrating ongoing incursions by neoliberal ideas and practices in Irish Social Policy.