Abstract
State and civil society have had a complicated and inter-twined relationship for many years and this has arguably never been more evident than during the COVID 19 pandemic. This review article discusses how this relationship played out locally and nationally during the early months of the pandemic from an English perspective to consider whether we have witnessed an extension of pre-existing roles or a re-making of new ones. At a national level we identify the exacerbation of pre-existing adversarial relationships focussed on the scale and necessity of the government’s financial support package for civil society organisations (CSOs). At the local level we observe an extension of prior complementary relationships, with CSOs further embedded in local systems of decision making, co-ordination and service provision. Wealso identifya newly visible and increasingly complementary local role for previously supplementary community-led CSOs responding to the needs of vulnerable citizens. It is unclear if the next phase of the pandemic will affect these relationships yet further, or whether these configurationswill be preserved following the COVID-19 crisis, but it seems certain that the crisis will have a lasting effect on national and local state-civil society interactions in one way or another
Highlights
State and civil society have had a complicated and inter-twined relationship for many years and this has arguably never been more evident than during the COVID 19 pandemic
Young (2000) in particular has been influential by bringing different strands of theory together to identify three alternative propositions, which are that Civil society organisations (CSOs) (a) operate independently as supplements to government, (b)work as complements to government in a partnership relationship, or (c) are engaged in an adversarial relationship of mutual accountability
We review the nature of state-CSOs relationships prior to the COVID-19 pandemic before discussing how thesehaveevolved during the immediate pandemic response
Summary
State and civil society have had a complicated and inter-twined relationship for many years and this has arguably never been more evident than during the COVID 19 pandemic. Civil society organisations (CSOs) - which include charities, voluntary organisations, community and mutual aid groups, social enterprises, and other social purpose organisations; and operate at local, national and international scales – have a long and complicated relationship with the state (both local and national government) In recent times this has never been more evident than during the COVID 19 pandemic during which CSOs have been engaged in a range of high-profile activities. ‘Macroevents’ - moments of significant economic and social upheaval, such the CODID 19 pandemic - represent external shocks or moments of ‘unsettlement’ through which developments in one field of activity (in this case a global public health crisis) rapidly cascade through other fields including politics, public services and civil society (Fligstein and McAdam, 2012; Macmillan etal., 2013) Episodes such as theCOVID 19 pandemic which destabilise, disrupt and create a sense of crisis, force actors in different overlapping fields – politics, public services, civil society, and communities - to rapidly to make sense of what is changing and develop new ways of responding and relating to each other (Macmillan, 2020a). This point notwithstanding, we conclude with some reflections for future research within the field of CSOs studies both during and beyond the crisis
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