The third in a series of webinars examining ‘Civic Virtue and the Common Good’ will take place on Tuesday 5^th July 2022 at 17:00.

Titled ‘Civic Virtues, Formative Institutions, and Flourishing Communities‘, the webinar will explore the role of formative institutions in encouraging democratic engagement, bringing citizens together, and helping communities to flourish – including through the cultivation and expression of virtue.

Registration for the session can be confirmed here.

Chaired by Senior Research Fellow, Lord James O’Shaughnessy, the webinar will welcome MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, Jesse Norman and former MP and the Director of both the Centre for English Identity and Politics and the Southern Policy Centre, Professor John Denham.

The webinar series focuses on whether and how a renewed, cross-party focus on civic virtues, community and the common good can help to foster and sustain flourishing communities, forming the basis of a new political consensus. The questions that will be addressed in this session, on the hopeful and positive forms of civic virtue which could form a core part of life in contemporary Britain, include:

• In order to foster civic virtues and underpin the common good, in what way do existing institutions have to change? Do we require new institutions? How might these institutions be successfully embedded into local and national life?
• What is the role of the state in developing the civic virtues of its citizens? What role do state institutions play in sustaining flourishing communities and how do, and should, these institutions relate to non-state organisations?
• What existing practices and examples are available that provide clear examples of flourishing organisations and communities that illustrate a productive role of/for the state?
• What are the obstacles or barriers to building formative institutions that bring citizens together, enable them to exercise civic virtue, and help communities to flourish? How might these challenges be overcome?

The two previous webinars in the series can be viewed here