Bringing ideology back in: the erosion of political innocence in English third sector policy

The paper draws upon basic distinctions made in Mary Douglas' cultural theory and some of the analytic concepts proposed by Michael Freeden to map and unpack the ideological dimension of recent developments in English third sector policy and politics. It is suggested that the mainstreaming of the third sector into policy debates and discourses in recent years can partly be understood as an attempt to decontest the idea that fatalism, neo-liberalism, plenipotentiary statism and autarky should all be ruled out as bases for engaging with the third sector; and that fostering a healthy civil society involves finding an ideational terrain which seeks to avoid these extremes. However, it is also suggested that developing third sector policy has also involved contesting the content of the shared ideational space thus ruled in. Competing ideational tendencies within the previous (New Labour) government—quasi-market consumerism, civil order renewal and democratic life revival—are identified, compared and contrasted, and the likely direction of travel in the years ahead under a Conservative–Liberal Democratic coalition is briefly discussed.