In an era of economic austerity, ‘community empowerment’, for whom? Perspectives on the Coalition’s urban policy in the UK

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The rhetoric of the Big Society agenda under the Coalition government in the UK(2010∼2015), which encouraged community empowerment, devolution, volunteerism and social action, gave the impression that people would have more choices and access to a much broader range of opportunities. However, the efficacy of the Coalition’s policy was highly controversial whilst they were in power. Accompanying these issues, this paper explores whether community empowerment is always a panacea for social and economic problems especially in deprived neighbourhoods. It examines how the concept of community empowerment was translated into reality under the Coalition, drawing upon existing secondary sources in the UK including government policy reports and research findings dating from the late 1990s onwards.
This paper begins with an overview of the Big Society idea under the Coalition, comparing it with the neighborhood renewal approaches under previous Labour governments. It then looks at the effect of the Coalition’s policies on local governments, local voluntary organisations and residents in deprived neighbourhoods. This paper concludes that the Coalition’s policies were not successful in achieving the Big Society’s goals of creating an inclusive and fairer society through greater community empowerment. It neglected the needs of communities in deprived neighbourhoods and marginalised them from society. Under the Coalition, the activities of community groups and voluntary organisations for vulnerable members of society deteriorated. The Big Society agenda clearly shows that community empowerment cannot be always an answer unless people in deprived neighbourhoods have enough resources or skills to make use of the increased control they are given.

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