Introduction

Charles Dickens opens his most political novel, A Tale of Two Cities, with these words. Nearly two centuries later, we cannot but agree with his suggestion that, ‘In short, the period was … like the present period’ (Dickens, 1859: 1). Such entangling of hope and despair not only defines our everyday life experiences; it is also echoed in the intellectual dilemma that is at the heart of this book. From the outset, we were searching for ‘hope in the dark’ (Solnit, 2004), with the ‘dark’ being austerity policies and their implications for people and places, and ‘hope’ being civil society's responses to them. By the time the manuscript was ready for submission (in spring 2020), the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was in full swing. While a full analysis of its effects is premature and beyond the scope of this chapter, we cannot but reflect on it where appropriate, especially in the conclusion. The juxtaposing of hope and despair does not suggest that hope is an unqualified positive attribute. On the contrary, as Ernst Block (1986 [1954–59]: 56) suggests, ‘fraudulent hope is one of the malefactors, even enervators, of the human race, concretely genuine hope is its most dedicated benefactor’, defining the latter as ‘informed discontent’ with the status quo and a call for action. So, for us, hope is that which allows us to imagine an alternative future and strive to achieve it. This is particularly apt in relation to the COVID-19 crisis and the limited preparedness for tackling it. The aim of this chapter is to engage with a number of critical questions that arise from the interplay of hope and despair, such as:

• • Should we celebrate the growing contributions from voluntary sector and charitable organisations as the best of times for a flourishing civil society, or should we reproach the decline of public services as the worst of times for a diminishing welfare state?

• • Should we embrace civil society initiatives as a mark of resistance to neoliberal policies, or should we repel them for mopping up the consequences of such policies?

• • Do civil society responses to austerity offer genuine or false hope?