'Communitarianism: the practice of postmodern liberalism', KG Giesen & K van der Pijl, eds, Global Norms in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006), pp212-225: ISBN 1904303986

Arising out of an invited contribution to an interdisciplinary Franco-British conference on emerging global norms in 2004, I argue that communitarianism, far from offering the basis of something like 'capitalism with a human face', is both the intellectual (eg Rorty, Selznick) and the political (eg Giddens, New Labour) foundation of contemporary neo-liberalism, an argument which is the culmination of some ten years' work on contemporary liberalism (eg 'Liberalism as idolatry', Jahrbuch für Politische Theologie, 1997; 'Liberal and communitarian conceptions of medical need, with particular reference to the management of organ transplantation', Archives of Hellenic Medicine, 1999).

In arguing that this variety of 'Third Way' thinking is merely a vehicle for neo-liberalism, I developed an analysis that affords a framework, both logical and ideological, for the academic treatment of a wide variety of contemporary moral-political issues in areas such as health and medicine, and higher education (eg '"In its own image": neo-liberalism and the managerialist university', Prospero, 2006; 'The politics of medical and health ethics: collapsing goods and the moral climate', Journal of Value Inquiry, 2007). It also forms the basis of public interventions in these areas, especially in my ongoing contributions to the development of professional medical practice, such as talks to bodies such as the Sussex Critical Care Network on rationing health resources, and the developing work of Brighton's Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics & Ethics, particularly its 2007-8 pilot series of workshops on the political rhetoric of biogenetics, in collaboration with Essex and Swansea, which we hope will issue in an AHRB/ESRC/Wellcome Trust project application (2008) combining academics, practitioners and public dissemination.