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David Cameron and the Big Society: a new deal for the new citizen

Raphaële Espiet-Kilty
p. 49-68

Résumé

According to the 27th Report of the British Social Attitudes survey published in December 2010, the English public’s attitude to the recipients of welfare benefits, more particularly the unemployed, has hardened. There seems to be much less support for tax and spend policies and for ‘Big Government’ intervention in social matters. Nevertheless, at the same time as the notion that there exists ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor’ was reappearing, the same respondents seemed to be fiercely condemning the inequalities that divided their society. An ambiguous attitude that David Cameron’s Conservative Party had to dissect in order to win back the electorate after 18 years out of office. The ‘Big Society´ was the party’s leader’s answer. How far can the Big Society reveal Cameron’s conception of social issues? Can it be used to draw an outline of his perception of what citizenship – here social citizenship – is?

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Extrait du texte

Ce document sera publié en ligne en texte intégral en août 2013.

Plan

Introduction
Evolution in social attitudes
Solidarity vs “assistance”
Social injustice vs inequalities
The Big Society: a new deal?
The forming of an idea
The phrasing of an idea
Conclusion

Aperçu du texte

Introduction

The object of this article is to try and answer three questions: have the repeated attempts at re-moulding citizenship succeeded in finally creating a new citizen at the dawn of the 2010 elections? Is Cameron’s Big Society Project a new social deal the aim of which would be to reflect this evolution? Or is it simply an attempt at attracting an electorate that shunned the Conservative Party in three consecutive elections?

In the first place it is necessary to define what I understand by citizenship. For this I will not focus on the official sense of the concept, that is to say, that which is found in most legal texts dealing with the scope of British nationality. Officially, the status British Citizen first appeared in 1981 (British Nationality Act) when it replaced the status of British Subject. Since then, citizenship and nationality have become closely linked, to the point that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them. However, these two concepts are not synonyms. ...

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Référence papier

Raphaële Espiet-Kilty, « David Cameron and the Big Society: a new deal for the new citizen », Observatoire de la société britannique, 12 | 2012, 49-68.

Référence électronique

Raphaële Espiet-Kilty, « David Cameron and the Big Society: a new deal for the new citizen », Observatoire de la société britannique [En ligne], 12 | 2012, mis en ligne le 01 août 2013, consulté le 19 mai 2013. URL : http://osb.revues.org/1301 ; DOI : 10.4000/osb.1301

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Auteur

Raphaële Espiet-Kilty

Maître de conférences à l'Université de Clermont-Ferrand II

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