The Community and Voluntary Pillar in Irish social partnership – Analysis and Prospects

This paper draws on my recent book, Asymmetric Engagement - The Community and Voluntary Pillar in Irish Social Partnership. The concept of asymmetric engagement is an alternative to interpretations of the role of community and voluntary organisations involved in a new social pacts in a neo-corporatist framework. While these have rested mainly on bargaining, deliberation or incorporation, the concept of asymmetric engagement introduces a more complex modality that has parallels with warfare. Indeed, the term asymmetric warfare is used to describe small, mobile guerrilla organisations engaging the more powerful standing army of a state. Asymmetric engagement in social partnership – and perhaps in a wider set of civil contexts – involves small principled organisations engaging the more powerful groups of state, employers and unions. The comparison with forms of warfare apt. Small forces can be dismissed or “wiped out” by the state in either case. However, they can occasionally punch above their weight but in doing so they draw on the influence of shifts in the demos at times when the issue of legitimacy is in relief, as happens with changes in the economic cycle and political cycle. However, small organisations may also spend long periods in the doldrums and spend many years campaigning. Persistence, policy entrepreneurship and good analysis are essential in pursuing value driven agendas that typify community and voluntary sector organisations but not in themselves sufficient to ensure success