Visions of community for community OR

The purpose of this paper is to open space for a debate about normative visions of community and their implications for community OR. It is argued that, if practitioners do not reflect on the different visions that it is possible to promote, then there is a danger that they will default to the understanding of community that is implicit in the liberal/capitalist tradition currently dominant in the West (and increasingly most of the rest of the world). Some may be happy with this, but for those who wish to consider the value of alternative political traditions, there is a need for explicit reflection on the different possible meanings of the term ‘community’. To clarify some of the choices available to community OR practitioners, three major political traditions are reviewed (liberalism, Marxism and communitarianism), as well as sub-divisions of these, and the paper asks: what kind of community OR practice would support each one? In all, eight different (sometimes overlapping) forms of community OR practice are identified, each of which is capable of promoting a different normative vision of community. There are therefore substantial political choices open to those involved in community OR.