The apparent preoccupation by the UK national media with the meaning behind the ‘Big Society’ may seem of marginal importance to members of the RSA and to readers of Regions. I want to suggest the opposite. I think that the way David Cameron has framed his definition of what he means by the Big Society and its linked public policy initiatives on localism are very much part of our agenda too. Indeed, the RSA – through its growing family of international research networks – is one of the key academic and research focused organisations to provide some of the intellectual grounding with which to point to the weaknesses and contradictions in the Cameron concept of both localism and the Big Society. In this piece, I want to (briefly) discuss the following:
1. What is meant by the Big Society?
2. What is the link to localism?
3. Why does this matter for us – the RSA?
4. What next?