Southampton Seminar Series

 

Dr. Rob Macmillan (Third Sector Research Centre, University of Birmingham)

Despite a largely sceptical, if not indifferent, public reception, the ‘Big Society’ continues to be a central feature of the Conservative-led coalition’s project, and David Cameron refers to it as his passion. However, the Big Society remains a rather elusive concept. Academics and commentators are trying to understand what it means, what it signals, and what it might imply. It is viewed by critics as providing political cover for the coalition’s deficit reduction programme and as a Trojan horse for privatisation. Others argue that it represents a significant recasting of the relationship between citizens and the state, as well as providing new opportunities and spaces for voluntary and community action.

 

This seminar asks what the Big Society might mean for the third sector, and in particular how the changing relationship with the state might be understood. The previous Labour government’s approach has been characterised as the development of a closer ‘partnership’ between state and the third sector. Whilst there are important continuities from this time, a partial decoupling may now be underway in the new political and economic context. Theoretically, this might signal a shift away from the idea of interdependence between the state and the third sector, and towards a model involving separate spheres - from partnership to a ‘trial separation’. To explore this dynamic the seminar draws on Friedrich Hayek’s theory of ‘spontaneous order’, suggesting that the Big Society involves some implicit Hayekian assumptions. It concludes by considering the implications of regarding the third sector in such terms.