This edited collection critically explores the funding arrangements governing contemporary community development and how they shape its theory and practice.

International contributions from activists, practitioners and academics consider the evolution of funding in community development and how changes in policy and practice can be understood in relation to the politics of neoliberalism and contemporary efforts to build global democracy from the ‘bottom up’.

Thematically, the collection explores matters such as popular democracy, the shifting contours of the state-market relationship, prospects for democratising the state, the prospects for community autonomy, the effects of managerialism and hybrid modes of funding such as social finance.

The collection is thus uniquely positioned to stimulate critical debate on both policy and practice within the broad field of community development.