Abstract
David Cameron's advocacy of the ‘Big Society’ in the run-up to the 2010 general election was the culmination of his strategy, as Opposition Leader, to detoxify the Conservative brand, and persuade voters that the Party had moved on from Thatcherism. This article traces the genealogy of the concept, which echoes Edmund Burke as well as several senior figures from the party's more recent history. Despite Cameron's evident enthusiasm for the idea, much of the British public, as well as many Conservatives themselves, remain unimpressed. Indeed, some of them profess uncertainty about what exactly the ‘Big Society’ is: whereas others think they know what it is, and don’t like it. We argue that the main problems with the ‘Big Society’ relate to context rather than content; it proved easy for critics to portray it as a rationale for spending cuts, which were not envisioned when the idea was being developed, and although it provided the plausible post-Thatcherite ‘narrative’, which the Conservatives had sought in vain since 1997, it was deployed in an election battle where such a narrative was at best superfluous, and at worst a source of distraction from the perceived failings of the incumbent Labour Party.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
‘Nudge economics’ briefly acquired some prominence, following the publication of a book entitled Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Written by two American economists, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (2008), Nudge explains how both individual and social behaviour could be improved through incentives and subtly steering people towards socially responsible choices, rather than relying on prescriptive measures imposed top-down by the State.
References
Ashcroft, M. (2010) Minority Verdict: The Conservative Party, the Voters and the 2010 Election. London: Biteback.
Bishop, M. and Green, M. (2011) The Road from Ruin: A New Capitalism for a Big Society. London: A. & C. Black.
Blond, P. (2009a) The Civic State: Re-moralise the Market, Re-localise the Economy and Re-capitalise the Poor. London: ResPublica.
Blond, P. (2009b) Red Tory. In: J. Cruddas and J. Rutherford (eds.) Is the Future Conservative? London: Compass/Soundings/Lawrence and Wishart.
Blond, P. (2009c) Rise of the red Tories. Prospect 28 February.
Brown, A. and Blatchford, K. (2011) The big society. In: A. Paun (ed.) One Year On: The First Year of the Coalition Government. London: Institute for Government.
Bryant, A. (1929) The Spirit of Conservatism. London: Methuen.
Burke, E. (1790/1986) Reflections on the Revolution in France. London: Penguin Classics, (originally published in 1790).
Byrne, C., Foster, E. and Kerr, P. (2012) Understanding conservative modernisation. In: T. Heppell and D. Seawright (eds.) Cameron and the Conservatives. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cameron, D. (2009) Speech: The big society. 10 November, http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/11/David_Cameron_The_Big_Society.aspx.
Cameron, D. (2010) Speech: Our big society plan. 31 March, http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/03/David_Cameron_Our_Big_Society_plan.aspx.
Cecil, L.H. (1912) Conservatism. Thornton Butterworth.
Conservative Home. (2010) Falling short: The key factors that contributed to the Conservative Party’s failure to win a parliamentary majority, http://conservativehome.blogs.com/files/electionreviewlee.pdf.
Conservative Party. (2006) Built to Last: The Aims and Values of the Conservative Party. London: Conservative Party.
Conservative Party. (2010) Invitation to Join the Government of Britain: The Conservative Manifesto 2010. London: Conservative Party.
Coote, A. (2010) Cutting it: The ‘Big Society’ and the New Austerity. London: The New Economics Foundation.
Davey, E. (2004) Liberalism and localism. In: P. Marshall and D. Laws (eds.) The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism. London: Profile.
Dorey, P. (2010) Faltering before the finishing line: The Conservative Party's performance in the 2010 general election. British Politics 5 (4): 402–435.
Dorey, P., Garnett, M. and Denham, A. (2011) From Crisis to Coalition: The Conservative Party, 1997–2010. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Evans, K. (2011) ‘Big Society’ in the UK: A policy review. Children & Society 25 (2): 164–171.
Garnett, M. and Hickson, K. (2009) Conservative Thinkers. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Gilmour, I. (1992) Dancing with Dogma: Britain under Thatcherism. London: Simon and Schuster.
Gray, J. (1995) Enlightenment's Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age. London: Routledge.
Gray, J. (1997) The undoing of conservatism. In: J. Gray and D. Willetts (eds.) Is Conservatism Dead? London: Profile Books/Social Market Foundation.
Green, D. (2003) More than Markets. London: Tory Reform Group.
Hailsham, L. (1978) The Dilemma of Democracy. London: Collins.
Hayek, F. (1976) Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 2: The Mirage of Social Justice. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Hayek, F. (1988) The weasel word ‘social’. In: R. Scruton (ed.) Conservative Thoughts: Essays from ‘The Salisbury Review’. London: Claridge, pp. 49–54.
Helm, T. and Asthana, A. (2010) David Cameron faces Tory party anger. The Observer 8 May.
Huhne, C. (2007) The case for localism: The liberal narrative. In: D. Brack, R.S. Grayson and D. Howarth (eds.) Reinventing the State: Social Liberalism for the 21st Century. London: Politico's.
Hurd, D. (1988) Citizenship in the Tory democracy. New Statesman 29 April.
Hurd, D. (1989) Freedom will flourish where citizens accept responsibilities. The Independent 7 September.
Hurd, D. (2003) Memoirs. London: Little, Brown.
Hurd, D. (2007) Robert Peel: A biography. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Independent on Sunday. (2011) Battle of the Big Society: Tories go on the offensive. 13 February.
Keay, D. (1987) Interview with Margaret Thacther. Woman's Own 31 October.
Kerr, P., Byrne, C. and Foster, E. (2011) Theorising Cameronism. Political Studies Review 9 (2): 193–207.
Letwin, O. (2003) The Neighbourly Society: Collected Speeches 2001–2003. London: Centre for Policy Studies.
Letwin, O. (2009) From economic revolution to social revolution. Alan Finlayson interviews Oliver Letwin MP, In: J. Cruddas and J. Rutherford (eds.) Is the Future Conservative? London: Compass/Soundings/Lawrence and Wishart.
Long, C. (2009) Phillip Blond: The red under Cameron's bed. The Sunday Times – News Review 18 October.
Maude, A. (1969) The Common Problem: A Policy for the Future. London: Constable.
McVeigh, T. (2010) Big society: Power to the people, Cameron style. The Observer 25 July.
Montgomerie, T. (2011) Top 10 mistakes of David Cameron. The Daily Telegraph 16 July.
Mount, F. (1993) Clubbing Together: The Revival of the Voluntary Principle. London: W.H. Smith Contemporary Publications.
Mount, F. (2009) Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes. London: Bloomsbury.
Norman, J. (2010) The Big Society: The Anatomy of the New Politics. Buckingham, UK: Buckingham University Press.
Norman, J. (2011) Stealing the Big Society. The Guardian 9 February.
Oakeshott, I. (2010) Ashcroft hits out at Tories’ election failures. The Sunday Times 8 August.
Oborne, P. (2005) The Rise of Political Lying. London: Free Press.
Scholefield, A. and Frost, G. (2011) Too ‘Nice’ To Be Tories? How the Modernisers Have Damaged the Conservative Party. London: Social Affairs Unit.
Smith, M.J. (2010) From big government to big society: Changing the state-society balance. Parliamentary Affairs 63 (4): 814–833.
Sunday Mirror. (2011) David Cameron’s Big Society: Voters believe Tory ‘vision’ just a gimmick to cover spending outs. 13 February.
Sylvester, R. (2011) A Facebook policy met by baffled faces. The Times 15 February.
Thaler, R.H. and Sunstein, C.R. (2008) Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Unger, I. (1996) The Best of Intentions: The Triumph and Failure of the Great Society under Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. New York: Doubleday.
Watt, N. (2010) There's No Such Thing as ‘Big Society’, Senior Tories Tell Cameron. The Guardian 20 April.
Willetts, D. (1992) Modern Conservatism. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
Willetts, D. (1994) Civic Conservatism. London: Social Market Foundation.
Willetts, D. (2002) The new contours of British politics. In: G. Streeter (ed.) There Is Such a Thing as Society: Twelve Principles of Compassionate Conservatism. London: Politico's.
Worsthorne, P. (2004) In Defence of Aristocracy. London: HarperCollins.
YouGov Poll. (2011) 4 September, http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/3970.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dorey, P., Garnett, M. No such thing as the ‘Big Society’? The Conservative Party's unnecessary search for ‘narrative’ in the 2010 general election. Br Polit 7, 389–417 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2012.17
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2012.17