Policy wins on paper can still breed discontent on the ground. Imagine a town that receives a shiny new youth centre and upgraded high street, yet its residents remain cynical and angry at government. Or consider the United States: trillions spent on COVID recovery and infrastructure under President Biden, unemployment at record lows – yet a wave of resentment propels a Trumpist revival. These scenarios reflect a harsh truth: even well-intentioned technical or economic improvements will backfire politically if people feel alienated in the process. When government neglects the relational aspect of governance – the trust, dignity and connection people crave – it creates a void that cynicism and populism rush to fill.
One recent analysis bluntly describes populism as a “symptom of relational pathology between the few (elites) and the many (the masses)”. The authors argue that when people perceive that those in power neither understand nor respect them, they seek leaders who signal that they do – even if those leaders are peddling anger and false promises. A dysfunctional relationship between citizens and government – marked by distrust and a sense of being treated as second-class – becomes fertile ground for demagogues. They offer recognition where mainstream institutions offer bureaucracy; they offer simplistic “us vs. them” narratives that speak to communities who feel unseen by distant policymakers.
Sound familiar? The UK knows this story all too well. Many communities across Britain – particularly in the so-called “Red Wall” – have experienced decades of economic policy that, by aggregate metrics, raised prosperity. Yet those same areas felt culturally and politically ignored, their social fabric worn thin. By 2016, the writing was on the wall: voters in left-behind towns used Brexit as an angry telegram to Westminster.
Why? It wasn’t simply about EU regulations or new funding formulas; it was about dignity and voice. As an Onward report found, these areas had some of the weakest local social networks and lowest trust in institutions in the country. People felt their communities were fading and nobody in power cared. Large portions of the public report feeling no tangible benefit and little trust in government. This gap between objective progress and subjective alienation is perilous. It suggests a failure of relationship: policies are happening to people, not with them.
A sentiment we see in the UCL Policy Lab and More in Common Respect Agenda report on the need for politics to better respect ordinary people.
All of this leads to a sobering conclusion: if we don’t weave relationships and respect into the fabric of public service, even well-meaning reforms can unravel our social contract. When citizens feel heard and valued, they are far more likely to give new policies a chance – or to voice criticism constructively rather than via torches and pitchforks. Social cohesion and trust act as a bulwark against the politics of division.
The government’s Pride in Place strategy is a recognition that without an emotional connection to one’s community, investments won’t stick. As the strategy puts it, “people feel disempowered…. Nothing will be solved if government continues to do things for people, rather than with people.” If we treat “pride” as merely fixing up the high street or improving service delivery we’ll have missed the point. A new park built without community input may very well invite criticism, whereas a modest project developed collaboratively can build trust even before it’s finished. As the American scholar Hahrie Han puts it, “[Citizens’] commitment springs at least partly from people’s sense of their own agency. People have to transform from feeling like subjects to objects in the project of democracy.”
In my own work my team and I focus on Relational State Capacity – the idea that a state’s ability to solve public problems is not just about resources, structures, or formal authority, but about the quality of relationships between public servants, citizens, and institutions. This means trust, empathy, mutual accountability, and the willingness to engage across difference. A state rich in relational capacity is one where citizens feel seen and valued, and public servants are empowered to exercise judgment rather than follow rigid rules. It’s not soft or secondary; it’s the human infrastructure that enables systems to function, particularly in contexts where problems are complex and can’t be solved by technocratic fixes alone. In today’s Britain, amid efforts to reform public services and restore civic trust, building relational capacity may be our most overlooked yet vital task.
The government’s Test, Learn and Grow programme embodies many of the core principles of Relational State Capacity. Rather than delivering policy from the centre, it deploys cross-functional “innovation squads” into communities to co-design solutions with the people who use and deliver public services. These teams embed locally, working side by side with residents, frontline staff, and local institutions to understand lived realities and rapidly prototype reforms. By prioritising deep listening, mutual learning, and iterative problem-solving, the programme shifts the role of the civil servant – from distant designer to trusted partner. In doing so, it builds the kinds of respectful, trust-based relationships that are the heart of relational capacity. This is not just a different delivery model; it’s a different model of governance – one that sees connection and collaboration as essential infrastructure for a state that works.
Yes, we absolutely need the government to better deliver – but if we focus only on improving the quality of services, we’ll have missed a trick. Hell, we’ll have missed the most important one. We need to focus on relationships – to build, interaction by interaction, Relational State Capacity. Relationships are infrastructure. State capacity isn’t only about budgets and IT systems – it’s also about trust, empathy, and mutual respect between citizens and public servants. This is capacity we can then draw upon when we have to face myriad challenges – from the unexpected (e.g. COVID response) to the troublingly quotidian (e.g. creating pathways to success and felt agency for “NEET” young adults not in education, employment, or training).
So how do we strengthen the relational ties and avoid the political doom-loop? It requires intentional shifts at many levels of governance. We need to build systems that treat people with dignity and respect in every interaction. We need to manage the state so that the many dedicated public servants in Whitehall, local authorities, and everywhere in between can focus on the humans in front of them.
A focus on relationships is particularly critical as we (rightly) think about how to move towards a more digital state. Done wrongly, a digital state will de-humanize, with those front line public servants who don’t see their jobs replaced by automation focused on screens, not the humans in front of them. Done well, a digital state will provide public servants with informational inputs, decision support, and perhaps permissioning (e.g. an AI bot that authorizes deviations from standard procedures when in the public interest). By centering the relational in digital design, procurement, and implementation we can empower the humans working for the state to focus on the relational work they oft find the most meaningful – meeting citizens where they are, understanding their needs, and exercising judgment to forward the mission they oft so deeply believe in.
At Britain Renewed 2025: Public services for people and place there will surely be talk of “systems change” and innovation. But no system will change for the better if we ignore the human heart beating within it. A public service reform that doesn’t allow for improved relationships may well improve welfare; but it will not be up to the scale of the problems we face. We must avoid the trap of believing that as long as the policy design is clever, all will be well. The last decade (if not the last week’s headlines) should disabuse us of that notion. People don’t live in policy papers; they live in communities, navigating public services staffed by other people.
My question for the conference is what we can learn from programmes like Pride of Place; Test, Learn, and Grow; and all the myriad other (incredible!) innovations and energy in the UK and beyond. How can the seeds of hope at the heart of these efforts flourish? How can we change the general practice of government? If these programmes remain limited and on the periphery, they will do good things; but they will not fundamentally alter how the state functions. As a result they will not live up to the scale of the challenge.
This moment calls for deep and substantive change. If change is superficial or remains on the periphery of the state the UK may well follow the path of the US and so many others – towards the feel-good bromides of populism and with it a still-more profound unraveling of the social fabric. The next chapter of Britain’s renewal will be written not just in Whitehall strategy units, but in town halls, job centres, GP surgeries, and street corners across the country – wherever a public servant and a citizen come together and build a little more trust, a better relationship. We must build a state that forms relationships with people, not just delivers services to them. The political stability of the country may depend on it.
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On December 2 we will be hosting Britain Renewed 2025, a one-day conference bringing together politicians, senior civil servants, community leaders, frontline public servants and business voices to build momentum for public service reform to take hold across Whitehall. You can find out more about the event here.
Britain Renewed 2025 is delivered in partnership with AWS, Inner Circle Consulting, the Growth and Reform Network and the UKRI (ERC) Relational State Capacity Project.
Professor Honig recognises the assistance of AI in preparing the first rough draft of this note.
