Dr Matthew Donoghue

New Labour developed an ambitious programme to address what it saw as increasing social divisions in British society caused, primarily, by ethnic and cultural difference. Developed in 2001, community cohesion became embedded in many other social policy areas, especially regarding social inclusion, a commitment to empowering both individuals and communities, and developing a sense of British identity compatible with a rapidly globalising world. Though it was marginalised during the Coalition and Conservative governments, rising uncertainty and increasing division in the current period warrants a re-assessment of the utility of a discrete social cohesion policy framework. This chapter assesses New Labour’s approach to community cohesion, drawing out lessons from its use in the New Labour years and asks whether policymakers should return to a focus on social cohesion and what, if anything, should be done differently in a uncertain political and social landscape.

© Cambridge University Press 2018. This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on resilience by focusing on coping with hardship during the Great Recession, drawing upon primary data gathered through household and key informant interviews in nine European countries. As the resilience approach highlights agency, the paper examines the nature of household responses to hardship during this period on the basis of the 'structure-agency problem'. An important contribution of this paper is to identify different forms of agency and discuss their implications. More specifically, we conceptualise three different types of agency in coping with hardship: absorptive, adaptive and transformative. Analysis of the findings indicates that structural constraints remain prominent. Most coping mechanisms fall under the category of absorptive and adaptive agency characterised here as burden-bearing actions that 'conform' to changing circumstances rather than shaping those circumstances.