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Associative Principles and Democratic Reform 41

I the welfare sectors, the gradual growth of voluntarism as a remedy I for and a supplement to State collectivism may create models to be I emulated and diffused.

Above all what is needed is a concept that ties these various,

[ potentially popular, ideas together and shows their practicality -| political decentralization and govemance through associations, new regional economies and federalism and voluntarism in welfare. That concept has be en missing, not because it was not avail-[ able, but because political activity and circumstances have only just caught up with long-neglected ideas. The only route to the success of associationalism demands a elear concept, because that will tie together organizationally and attitudinally separate efforts working in different localities and social spheres toward similar ends. Local unionists and the owners of smali firms, Christian ! or Muslim voluntary workers in the inner cities, disadvantaged i ethnic groups seeking to develop their own businesses and serv-ices as a way to promote employment and community control, feminist and gay groups attempting to escape from discrimina-tion and wishing to create social relations according to their own values, ecological groups seeking both a morę human scalę and a sustainable environment, and many other diverse groups, may all profit from this knowledge.

The model of them all coming together in a single political party that attains power by persuading the electorate of the virtues of its programme and then enacts that plan into the simultaneous reform of the whole society is ąuite inappropriate. That is possible as a dream for collectivists and for those who wish to decollectivise ^through deregulation and privatization - both accept centralized (U7QS0vereign State power and do not wish to change it. Associa-^gtionalists have to rely on the multiplication of diverse efforts. jgaAssociationalist relationships have to begin to be built by citizens’ j^initiative and bodies freely formed by committed individuals. (S)Unless such relationships arise from genuine cooperation they ^will be of little value. Success in civil society, through municipal and regional initiatives and cooperation, and through specific IP^S) campaigns directed at the central State, will gradually show asso-rjL ciational relations to provide a viable strategy of social and politi-^ cal reform. Then it may be possible to persuade the central State to begin to legislate to make associative development morę easily available and morę widespread. However, the role of legislation