Why is community development regularly invoked as a way of tackling social problems? Why do politicians and policy makers routinely call on community development to rebuild bonds and trust between different groups of people? What is at stake philosophically, politically and in policy terms when community development is championed as a strategy for social renewal? Through a comparative analysis of American and British community development since 1968, this book aims to examine how key political and policy debates about social justice and social welfare have been inscribed onto and embodied within the theories and practices of community development in America and Britain. I call the processes by which contentious macro-level debates about the causes and solutions to social problems are embodied within the narrower spaces of community development ‘micropolitics’ in order to spotlight the complex nexus of politics, policy making, professional practices and grassroots activisms that are the bedrock of community development. Analysing the micropolitics of community development can, I argue, help to shed light on some of the underpinning contradictions and dilemmas of community development and support critical approaches to community development theory-building and grassroots practice.

In this book I seek to do two things. First, through a comparative historical analysis of community development discourses in America and Britain since 1968, I attempt to examine the changing nature of community development and map the competitions and contentions between different conceptions and practices of community development in each country. Putting community development in a transatlantic and historical comparative context is a powerful way of trying to understand the genealogy of particular ideas, political identities and social practices within this field. American and British community development have distinct but interrelated intellectual and practice traditions and have had sustained dialogues, disputes and transfers of knowledge since the early 20th century. Exploring the convergences and divergences in theories, politics and policies between these two countries is one important way of analysing and understanding the implications of the micropolitics of community development. Second, I attempt to analyse the changing identities of community, practitioner and policy actors over time and in each country. Mapping the ways in which different actors, in various community development processes, are ascribed particular values and meanings is crucial for understanding the competing and often unequal ways in which community development operationalises its key concepts such as equality, empowerment and social justice in relation to particular individuals and groups.