A major theme of this year’s LikeMinds conference is an exploration of the relationship between curation and the Big Society. In particular, Steve Moor will be delivering a keynote called ‘ The Big Society: Curating A Country’ later today. This is a topic close to my heart so I feel somewhat compelled to write a post or two about it. There’s a lot to cover, so this first part will deal with defining the Big Society, explaining how it relates to Civil Society and touching on the role of curation in the Big Society.What is ‘Big Society’?
The Big Society is a government policy named by the Conservatives during the 2010 election. In 2010, the Coalition Government published a two and a half page document about the subject. The document states that the Big Society is not the responsibility of just one department, but of all of government and all UK citizens as well. It calls upon society – defined as families, networks, neighborhoods and communities to become bigger and stronger than ever before and to take more responsibility in order to achieve fairness and opportunity for all.
1. Big Society is not a new idea – but it is ideological
The Big Society is ideological in the sense that it is based on liberal and conservative principles (I am referring to the bodies of thought rather than the UK political parties) of a smaller, less intrusive state, social responsibility and the role of individuals within a framework of civil society.
It is differs from more recent Conservative ideas about ‘rolling back the state’ in that it acts to stimulate the growth of society in its own right and to its own ends. In doing so, the Government borrows from a socialist interventionist tradition by undertaking practical policies and strategies to stimulate Civil Society.
This is in contrast to Conservative policies of the 1980s (Thatcherite Monetarism) which stated that the market on its own would fill the gaps that government left through free market activity and the trickle down of money freed up by low taxation and spending, but did nothing proactive to replace it.
The implementation of The Big Society does not specifically necessitate the reduction of the state, although implementing it would lead to this. Furthermore, the maxim that ‘Government cannot fix every problem’ is stated in the Big Society Policy document, implying an underlying commitment for Government to remain outside of certain areas of our lives.
In addition, the fact that the current economic situation necessitates huge cuts in Government spending perhaps allows the promoters of Big Society to avoid having to justify spending cuts in relation to the Big Society when in fact it is a fundamental principle of the program to build the Big Society.
The Big Society can therefore be seen as a mature ideology in that it attempts to borrow the best from all ideological traditions and combine them in a practical, consensus based approach. It is in this way both traditionally conservative with a small ‘c’ and Blairite as a third way approach to political differences.
In describing the The Big Society, historic and modern examples are often cited of what ‘The Big Society’ might look like in practice. However it is questionable whether a ‘golden age of social responsibility’ that The Big Society project seeks to aspire to has really ever existed other than in small, singular and exceptional cases. If that is the case, the Big Society Project is perhaps aspiring to more of an ideal than a previous state and therefore a truly ideological program of government activity. This association with ‘ideology’ is something most Big Society advocates (particularly in Government) are keen to distance themselves from and would further explain why there is a reluctance to use existing terminology such as ‘Civil Society’.
2. Big Society and Civil Society
Big Society is very similar in many respects to the idea of Civil Society – an ancient concept from the time of City State democracy, given a more modern meaning in the Liberal thought of Hobbes and Locke through the idea of the Social Contract. This is developed further into a more modern and socialist concept through Hegel, Marx and Gramsci.
The modern idea of Civil Society is defined as voluntary organisations, institutions and groups of shared interest and opinion that are not part of the government and not engaged in market activity.
Depending on your definition, Civil Society differs from The Big Society in that Civil Society is usually defined as spontaneous, whereas The Big Society is a set of government actions and policies designed to stimulate Civil Society type activity.
In this light The Big Society can be seen as a political and governmental attempt to stimulate the growth of Civil Society, possibly to the exclusion of commercial organisations.
Therefore in trying to define ‘the Big Society’, it is most succinctly described as a setoff activities by government and political activists designed to act upon Civil Society in order to stimulate its growth.
An example of Civil Society in action
Civil Society arguably is most active and visible as a part of US government and politics, where the institutions of Civil Society have a great deal of power through their lobbying activities in Washington. The NRA (National Rifle Association) is a high profile example, lobbying in defense of the US constitutional right to bear arms and carry a gun in the US.
In this respect Civil Society has a direct impact on determining how votes are cast in both the Senate and House of Representatives, and in determining specific compromises in legislation. Whilst Civil Society can be clearly seen to empower citizens by allowing their views to directly impact government and the law of the land, the US version of Civil Society is also much criticised for creating watered down ineffectual legislation and causing government to react too slowly to issues. IT is also criticized for allowing wealthy minority to have too much power and access to senior politicians.
3. The Big Society project as the curation of Civil Society
When talking about the Big Society, it is important to remember that The Big Society does not seek to create a Civil Society – this is something that already exists.
It only argues that Civil Society should take a more active and responsible role and that government should enable this. It also implies but does not specifically state that Civil Society is something that has been suffocated by an over-intrusive, expansive and indeed expensive state. In this respect, the Big Society project can be seen as a ‘curation project’ on our own Civil Society.
In this respect then, the Big Society Program can only be fully understood as a set of activities acting upon civil society institutions designed to stimulate growth and get society to take on responsibilities that government has traditionally undertaken, or by implication, government has encroached upon.
Okay – so how do you curate a society?
The Government’s Big Society document states the first five policies of The Big Society Project, which act as a call to action to curators within society and to government organisations and employees specifically. It also defines policies that will enable individuals through training, empowerment and incentive.
Interestingly, the government seeks to form institutions (specifically a bank) mimicking those of the commercial and political worlds in order to drive and stimulate the growth of Civil Society.
Here are the five policies and specific pledges made therein:
1. To give communities more powers. This includes specific pledges to reform the planning system, to allow communities to save and even run local state managed services and to train individuals as community organisers and (in the context of LikeMinds) curators.
2. To encourage people to take a more active role in their communities. Specific pledges to launch a national Big Society day, to reward civil servants for community involvement, to encourage charitable giving and to introduce a national citizen service for 16 year olds.
3. To transfer a wide range of powers away from central government to local government. This includes pledges to fully review local government finance and to return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils.
4. To support co-ops, mutual charities and social enterprises. Specific pledges include supporting the creation and growth of social enterprises, giving them a role in running public services, enabling public sector employees to take ownership of their own departments and run them as their own and to use funds from dormant bank accounts to establish a bank specifically to fund the growth of this sector
5. To publish government data and establish a ‘right to data’ as part of this. Specific pledges include publishing government held data sets on a regular basis and obliging the police to publish detailed monthly statistics on local crime.
We don’t want to overload you with information, so that’s all for now. Our next post on the subject will go into more detail about curation and cover how the Big Society fits in with the digital framework. In the meantime, visit thebigsociety.co.uk (the website of a truly inspiring not-for-profit group) for more information.
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