The government's approach to public services prompts many questions. But one thing is clear: this is about markets over human needs, and competition over co-operation.
We are told that a healthy happy citizen must enjoy "meaning, mastery and autonomy". Cameron's Big Society requires citizens to be innovative and not averse to risk. Yet can we become happy and playful in a climate of economic insecurity?
It is time for coalitions and collaboration in the UK. These must be strong in order to build an alternative, people-centred vision for how the country should be governed. Here, the author of 'Power in Coalition' identifies four lessons from outside the UK on building successful coalitions.
If the Big Society is in the middle of everything, where are state, the people and England? David Martin asks in this Friday Essay whether Britain can claim to have a centre any longer.
Modern democracy does require something more than a cynical set of operators negotiating with corporate power while misleading the voters and spinning the press. Associational democracy is a good place to start for any government casting about for an alternative. But first you must accept its diag
Paul Hirst explored one particular cause for the creeping authoritarianism of the liberal democratic state that he identified before 9/11: the worsening crisis caused by the attempt to govern by one community standard in a diversifying world.
Revisiting Associative Democracy, an e-book, draws together the ideas and thoughts of a group of people who met last October to discuss, scrutinise and develop Paul Hirst’s views of Associative Democracy and their current relevance. The editor and seminar organiser gives us a tour de horizon of th
Participants in the Revisiting Associative Democracy seminar organized last October by Andrea Westall and Stuart White in London’s Coin Street Community Centre were invited to read this usefully condensed account of Paul Hirst's normative political theory, published in 2002.
If Prime Minister David Cameron’s 'Big Society' brings religious groups to the fore even more than Tony Blair’s opening of the education system to faith groups, what impact will this have on British society?
The Big Society must articulate its vision and define its expected outcomes, or face fading from the political landscape.
The government wrote an open letter to civil society in November, inviting them to be part of "building the Big Society". The Directory of Social Change has composed a tongue and cheek but highly pertinent reply.
