The "big society" in the United Kingdom: Privatisation or democratisation of public services

Abstract

The Big Society was one of three priorities of Prime Minister David Cameron after his election in 2010. Rarely had a Western government given such a high profile to the community or to the civil society sphere. The article traces the evolution of an opaque and ultimately doomed public policy. Special attention is paid to the role of the Community Organisers Programme, one of the defining, if ambiguous, strands of the Big Society vision. The article presents a critical consideration of the effectiveness to date of the Big Society in its declared objective of achieving sustainable, long term community empowerment by giving a greater role to civil society.