Whether or not society is ‘broken’ or the state ‘smaller’ – whatever the ‘big society’ left behind by the coalition – the mission of the next Labour government is to promote a bigger society.

So what should this mean in practice? Michael Walzer described ‘civil society’ as the ‘space of uncoerced human association and also the set of relational networks – formed for the sake of family, faith, interest, and ideology – that fill this space.’ Robert Putnam found much the same ‘space’ in speaking of ‘social capital.’ Can we agree that our key test for the ‘bigger society’ is the strength and abundance of ‘uncoerced association’ – all kinds of community group, association, charity and network driven by voluntary effort to promote some shared purpose? If so, is every expression of the bigger society legitimate and desirable? Walzer warns that this network, left to itself, is ‘fragmented and localised’ and generates ‘radically unequal power relationships.’ State power is needed to balance this tendency – by setting ‘the basic rules of associational activity’ and calling on associations to ‘think about a common good, beyond their own conceptions of a good life.’ To do this requires ‘new forms of state action.’

No one would deny that the last government made progress here, some of it now being eroded under the weight of cuts. But New Labour’s emphasis was on how state institutions would lead public involvement, rather than how to sponsor and protect autonomous community action. We have done too little to generate a democratic left philosophy of the ‘bigger society’ and its relationship with the state.

Let me share the experience of two community groups that have sought my advice in the last few days. A residents’ association on a once-troubled estate, proud of its achievements in cutting crime and promoting health, wants ideas on how it can sustain its support network as its neighbourhood partnership and PCT get shot away. A tenant cooperative delivering a valued service for less cost than the competition faces an arms length management organisation demanding that it cut services and hand over its surpluses, claiming to act with the authority of a Labour council. There are clues here about what the ‘bigger society’ needs – resourceful leadership, secure rights, respect for local autonomy, access to advice and less reliance on capricious state funding and the bureaucratic self-interest it can spawn. But the state also has a duty to monitor, regulate and impartially patrol the troubled boundary between state and civil society.

The bigger society doesn’t need a bigger (or smaller) state – but it urgently needs a smarter one.