The changing fortunes of community Can community deliver? Window dressing or window of opportunity? 2 - The policy context Community deficit System failure Structural and economic failure Government failure Area-based policies 3 - Ideas of community Community Communitarianism Social capital Civil society Mutuality Networks and informality 4 - Contradictions of community Comunnity and communitarianism Social capital Civil society Mutuality e informality 5 - Prescribing community to the poor Poverty and social exclusion Prescribing community to the poor 6 - Power and empowerment Understanding power Routes to empowerment 7 - Power in the policy process Who makes policy? How is policy made? Policy in practice The interactive state Frameworks for empowerment 8 - Experiencing empowerment The rules of the game What game are we playing? How to play Who plays The dice are loaded Are we in the right game? 9 - Reclaiming community Releasing in community Designing in community 10 - Reclaiming power Communities as producers and co-producers Communities as policy makers 11 - The challenge for communities Reconciling coherence and diversity Reconciling leadership, participation and representation Scaling up Infrastructural capacity 12 - The institutional challenge Building agency capacity Institutional capacity Bringing the state back in 13 - Community empowerment: myth or reality? Present dilemmas New futures Continuing themes Pessimist, optimist or pragmatist? Making pragmatism work