ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses how valid these claims are, and to what extent the New Labour project is likely to succeed in delivering social inclusion. It offers an alternative welfare strategy founded largely on one single social policy initiative –the 'Citizen's Income'. The chapter discusses the notion of radical community development and conflict. New Labour's welfare modernisation programme centres on achieving social inclusion by getting people back into paid work. Pivotal to the proposed alternative welfare strategy is the notion that we need to deconstruct the dominant supplementary narrative of 'work' and to reconstruct a different understanding that will, in turn, lead to different notions of 'family', 'sexuality' and 'consumption'. Jordan highlights the contradiction in Blair's orthodoxy of 'community', with its emphasis on traditional family values and civic responsibility. Concrete examples of community development in action can be found in experiments in 'participatory democracy' that appear to have transformed the political culture of cities in Brazil and Uruguay.
