ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author captures four dimensions of contemporary community discourses. First, the way politicians, talkback radio hosts and other public opinion makers deploy the term in their discourse is 'political' in the sense that it has ideological effects which justify public policies that further disadvantage the disadvantaged. Second, the way community discourses are being deployed to enforce a new, socially coercive social contract for particular groups of people - those who are disadvantaged and in need of welfare assistance just to survive. Third, contemporary community discourses are political in the way in which they relate to the paradox of inclusion and exclusion inherent in the new 'mutual obligation' social policy framework. And fourth, the author uses the politics of community to capture the shift away from social justice concerns in public policy discourse. To a very large extent, these dimensions of the politics of community work through Robert Putnam's narrative of community decline.
