Rethinking public ownership: Experimenting with Institutions

The word ‘institution’ tends to attract at best a conditional appreciation and at worst a complete aversion. The aversion is usually triggered by some form of exposure to institutional violence through bureaucracy or enforcement of undesirable norms; while a conditional appreciation usually stems from a general welcoming of [End Page 99] institutional safety nets combined with an awareness of their potentially oppressive downsides. In their Kilburn Manifesto contribution ‘States of Imagination’, Janet Newman and John Clarke describe a similar relationship between people and the state: the state is both loathed and desired under current political conditions, since it has the capacity to function both as a tool of neoliberal policies and as a ‘bulwark’ against them.1 As more and more institutions of the welfare state, including the National Health Service, are being dismantled, the question of what kinds of institutions we actually want has become more urgent. Do we want to protect the institutions we already have, which we need but feel ambiguous about, or are there better alternatives?