A “theory of the state” can be thought of as a clear idea of the society you want, and the role of government in making it happen.
Charities should have a clear “theory of the state” that describes how their relationship with the state supports their wider theory of change.
Thinking about the role you play as a charity relative to the state is likely to be critical in the face of cuts to public services and the wider crises facing the world.

What is a “theory of the state”?

I was at a meeting with a retired frontline politician who said that the general problem with politics in the UK was that none of the main parties have a “theory of the state” any more.

By this he meant a clear idea of what sort of society they want, the problems that need to be overcome to get there, and the role of the state in making it happen*.

His view was that parties across the political spectrum were either making decisions without reference to a theory, or based on theories that were out of date.

The politician’s view was that with no clear sense of the society we want and no clear articulation of the role of government in getting there, everything was tactics. Politics would just bounce around driven by events, short term political considerations and media tactics.

What’s your “theory of the state”?

It made me wonder how many charities and social progress organisations had a “theory of the state”, or whether they even needed one.

Most charities are familiar with a “theory of change” to describe the world they want to see and how they will make it happen.

In this context, a “theory of the state” would mean a clear view of the role of the state in that theory of change, where “the state” is most simply understood as the machinery of government, its institutions, and the functions of the public sector.

The “state” could be whatever is most relevant to you and your mission – central government, local government, the NHS, or public sector agencies. It could be policymakers or frontline workers, funders or customers.

In short – in order to achieve your mission, what do you expect government or the public sector to do? And what does government and the public sector expect of you?

How you answer those questions should shape your theory of change, strategic priorities and ways of working.

What sort of relationships do charities have with the state?

Charities, social enterprises and coalitions are set up with lots of different relationships to the state. These are based on different expectations of what the state will do, how it works and how it interacts with external parties.

These relationships are also based on assumptions; including what you think the proper job of the public sector is, how good they are at doing it and where charities are best placed to make a difference. These assumptions are often grounded in people’s personal political values and experiences, so they are rarely explicitly articulated.

As well as different types of relationship, there are vast differences of power, funding, values, scale, access and authority that represent the full diversity of the charity sector. Charities choose (and are assigned) their roles based on these factors. Assumptions flow both ways. Assumptions are not always positive.

Beyond this, there are many charities that do not have or want direct relationships with the state at all, or focus more on communities or the private sector, but most charities interact with the public sector, politics and policy in one way or another.

Based on organisations we have worked with, an incomplete and overlapping list of those relationships we have observed would include:

Innovator: A charity is trying something new. By proving the case for something – often a new way of working or a type of intervention – it hopes to be a vanguard for change across the public sector.
Expert: The charity is a source of knowledge, ideas and expertise for policymakers or practitioners. In this case, the focus is less on delivery, and more on building the evidence to educate and inform.
Champion: An advocate for, or supporter of, a particular group within a system. This is distinct from the Expert, because the Champion is trying to influence outcomes, and win an argument for change.
Campaigner: This is about mobilising opinion, changing narratives and representation. This can be an end in itself, or a means to some other end. It can focus on individual cases or whole systems. “Campaigning” is a word with lots of definitions in the sector and overlaps with many other roles.
Navigator: This role is about helping people navigate a complex system, often signposting information, providing guidance and support. If the focus of the Champion is policy, the focus of the Navigator is casework.
Watchdog: This is about providing independent scrutiny of public services, using tools such as formal complaint processes, legal challenges, or media exposure. These are organisations that seek to hold public services to account.
Convenor: Charities often play a critical role connecting people together and building networks. This is common in academia, but true across the public sector. You see it anywhere where there is capacity-building and communities of practice.
Service Provider: It is common for a charity to provide services, and often these services are funded by the public sector, either through grants or more normally contracts. This can involve competition among providers, transferring staff from the public sector and often “topping-up” the contract value with charitable contributions. It creates a different relationship of power and accountability compared to many of the other roles.
Topping-up: The charity sees its role as providing additional services and benefits that the public sector cannot provide, or cannot justifying budgeting for. Sometimes this is part of a role as service provider, but sometimes it is as a standalone charity. The aim is not to change a service, but to help out where help is needed. To manage the risks here, NHS charities and the National Lottery have rules that their spending cannot be used to substitute for things that should be provided by the public sector.
Safety Net: In this case a charity sees itself as providing a critical service, often because they see a failure in public provision. If the “Topping-Up” role is about creating a surplus, the “Safety Net” is about addressing a deficit. The precise role may depend on the state of the public service as much as the intention of the charity.

The best charities play a number of these roles at the same time

The sector is too diverse for any one list to be comprehensive, but the list above illustrates some of the different ways that charities can stand in relation to the state.

Many of these roles go together. For example, a successful Innovator knows that a good pilot programme is never enough. They need to be Experts and collect the right evidence, and then become Champions who will advocate for change. Their expertise might come from Service Delivery, or maybe from their experience as Navigators of a complicated system.

Sometimes, these roles need to be held in a healthy tension.

For example, it can be difficult to play the role of a Champion or Watchdog when you are also a Service Provider, but charities recognise that their mission demands they speak out.

The best charities manage this tension through a constant dialogue between their programmes, policy and advocacy people.

Not being clear about these roles can lead to missed opportunities

The way a charity thinks about the state is often implicit, based on assumptions, historic experience and existing relationships.

This can create strong, focussed organisations, but also lead to missed opportunities for impact at scale.

For example, we have worked with charities that help people navigate complicated public sector systems. They have incredible expertise and understanding of how the system works, and are dedicated caseworkers for the most vulnerable people.

This focus on individual cases means they don’t always think to prioritise the Expert role to consolidate all the evidence or Champion a case for a different way of working. Those charities that have combined case experience with expert advocacy and campaigning have often been very successful. But this approach needs to combine different skills, relationships and ways of working.

In contrast, we have seen organisations who saw themselves as aggressive disruptors. They invested large sums in genuinely innovative programmes with good evidence, but this culture of disruption led to such antagonistic relationships with policymakers that no-one would adopt their programmes.

Many charities have sharpened their own strategy by working on their theory of change. A theory of the state should be a complement to this thinking.

Charities should be deliberate about their relationship with the state

Sometimes, there’s confusion when a charity isn’t clear about the role, or roles, it is trying to play relative to the public sector. It just describes itself as a “partner” without really interrogating what that means, or what the other side of the partnership thinks of you.

A common example is when charities are Service Providers who would rather be Innovators, even though they are procured, managed and treated as lowest-cost Service Providers. They keep proposing new and impactful ways of working to their customer, but the contracting agency is only interested in the bottom line, especially when they are facing cuts to their budgets.

It can be a very uncomfortable place to be. Especially when you know it is happening, but feel like it is the best and only option available.

The hardest choices come when you know you are providing a service of last resort for people with few other options, but cuts keep coming. If the role of a charity transitions from “Topping up” a service that works, to being a “Safety Net” under a service that is failing, this can require an aggressive focus to protect the people you support, and a possible shift to new roles – gathering evidence, campaigning and championing.

Confusion can also arise when the public sector changes, but the charity is stuck in an old model of thinking.

This can happen when a charity loses a big funding stream, or its primary government department is merged into another one, or the policy agenda changes radically. It can happen when big cuts in public sector spending change the landscape significantly.

Sometimes, there is a reluctance to grasp the consequences of these changes. You can be left with lots of policy people who have no-one in government to talk to, or an uncomfortable choice about a service that can no longer be funded.

The state is too big to ignore

Charities have some significant advantages in comparison to the public sector.

They are independent. They are voluntary. They are part of communities and civil society. They can be agile and innovative. They can focus on specific issues and champion specific causes. They have a different risk profile, a different time horizon and different accountabilities to public authorities and agencies. They can think about systemic change over the very long-term, or respond creatively at speed to urgent needs.

However, the delivery of most social objectives, at some point, runs through – or adjacent to – the public sector. The fundamental challenge here is scale – there are some very big charities in this country, but very few are the size of a local authority, let alone the NHS or schools system. So if you want to deliver national outcomes, at some point you will have to think about your relationship with the public sector. This is not to be defeatist – very small charities have been successful in affecting national change, but they did so with a clear plan of how to do it.

Beyond this question of raw scale, the question – “What is your theory of the state?” – is likely to become more and more important in the coming years, as public budgets come under increasing pressure, the structure of public sector provision changes (especially in health and social care), and the post-Brexit policy environment leads to even more change.

Almost exactly five years ago I wrote a blog claiming that “everything is connected and nothing makes sense”. This seems ever more true.

The popular framing at the moment is that we are in a “polycrisis”, a world of “economic and non-economic shocks” that are entangled “all the way down”. Energy shocks, security threats, migration issues, pandemics, slow growth, rising inequality, closing civic space, climate change, cost of living and social care issues and others are all connected and hard to unpick.

At the same time there are grounds for optimism – many global indicators, from global health to the energy transition are moving in the right direction (albeit slowly), the speed of technological change promises health and social benefits, and we have the ability to make choices to build the world we want.

There’s no one right answer

How the state responds to all of these issues is critical, and how charities can shape that response is a vital question and challenge.

So it is worth asking:

Do you know what you want (or need) the government and public sector to do to achieve your vision?
Do you know what role you play relative to the government and public sector?
Do you know what the public sector thinks of you? What they expect of you?
How do changes in the public sector or policy environment impact your theory of change?
How will all this change in the future? How do you avoid getting stuck in an old model?

The answers to these questions will lead to tough choices.

Do you try to adapt yourself to the conditions as they arise, or do you try to influence the conditions? What skills, capabilities and relationships will you need to play the roles that have the biggest impact? How do you collaborate – and with whom – for greatest impact?
If cuts are coming, can you realistically substitute public funding for charitable funding and what are the implications for services? When does providing a service become untenable?
How do you balance long-term engagement (like building relationships in government) with short-term emergencies (like funding and restructuring)? When do you shift from insider to outsider, or even outsider to insider? How do you talk to the public about this? What is the conversation you need to have with staff, supporters and beneficiaries about these issues?

This is an emerging conversation for us and these are live questions for many of our clients.

Having a good theory of the state isn’t making these choices easier, but it does make the choices clearer and present new opportunities for impact.

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* This is not a blog about political theory. Although the language of the “theory of the state” and its relation to civil society has Marxist roots and a more technical definition, this blog is presented as a practitioner’s reflections based on real-world examples, not a Marxist critique based on the relevant scholarship. Whether this article can even be reconciled with a proper Marxist critique is sort of up to the Marxists, and beyond the scope and education level of the author, who has not read enough Gramsci.