Retrieving The Big Society

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Ever since the formation of Britain's coalition government in 2010, talk of the "Big Society" has dominated political discussion. Retrieving the Big Society features a collection of essays contributed by top political theorists and policy experts that challenge the commonplace view of the Big Society as a politically motivated ploy filled with empty rhetoric. Instead, the contributors recognise the policy's significance as a serious attempt to think through an alternative to the central state in social and economic governance. Essays reveal how the Big Society occupies an important place in an often marginalized history of ideas concerning localism, mutualism, and voluntarism in British politics. But what is the relationship of the Big Society to this history of ideas? Does it represent a distinctively new synthesis of liberalism and conservatism, an entrenchment of the neo-liberal project, or is it simply a return to Tory romanticism? And to what extent are the ideas behind the Big Society realisable as an effective program of government? Addressing each of these topics with an objectivity often lacking in contemporary political discussions, Retrieving the Big Society offers original critical insights into a central idea in 21st-century governance.