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As the government's strategy for the implementation of the ‘Big Society’ gains momentum within an increasingly difficult financial framework, this article discusses some of the major implications of this approach for partnership working in crime and disorder reduction. It considers whether the approach is a totally new one or merely an extension of previous government policy, while considering some of the advantages and disadvantages of extending the ‘Big Society’ ideology. While acknowledging the potential problems of implementing such an approach, the article also highlights the opportunities that may present themselves for enhanced community consultation in the delivery of partnership working.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the conceptual and policy underpinnings of the UK Government's “Big Society” programme.

The paper uses secondary research: a review and analysis of published sources – official and unofficial.

The “Big Society” concept is unclear but seems more focused upon extending the principle of markets than increasing community cohesion. This may do little to encourage the shared endeavour which is known to be necessary for service integration focused on individuals. Co‐production would be a better concept to underpin the Big Society.

There have been few attempts to undertake a broad analysis of the Big Society idea and critically explore the whole programme.

The purpose of this paper is to report on findings from research into the role of language and discourse in shaping responses to older people at risk of abuse in England. Critical discourse analysis is used in this research to deconstruct policy to identify hidden meaning.

The study comprised of a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the coalition governments underpinning policy statement outlining its approach to safeguarding adults in “A Vision for Adult Social Care: Capable Communities and Active Citizens.”

This paper analyses the policy statement in some detail to explore its ability to guide practice in supporting older people at risk of harm. The results suggest ideological, philosophical and economic discourses underpinning policy may promote “Big Society” rather than address the abuse of older people, and that this might leave some older people vulnerable and at risk.

It is acknowledged the qualitative approach of CDA has its limitations as issues of subjectivity and interpretation exist. Fallibility is always present and no research can give a “complete” view of the world.

Drawing on this analysis may provide a heightened awareness of the use of discourse to expose potentially hidden motivations in others, and ourselves, by seeking out the ideological, philosophical and theoretical hiding places which enable specific discourses to become taken for granted.

By identifying the taken for grantedness of some discourses in everyday life, the author can gain a better understanding of how to challenge the status quo.

This paper explores practice in safeguarding adults from an ideological, economic and philosophical perspective.

Purpose – The aim of this chapter is to deconstruct the idea of a ‘Big Society’. We do so by underlining the left libertarian tradition in which civil society led economic activity such as the solidarity economy is embedded.

Methodology – By analysing the thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a key thinker and activist in the 19th libertarian socialist movement, we identify the principles guiding the solidarity economy. We illustrate our argument by drawing on qualitative research conducted on solidarity economy organisations in France.

Findings – The solidarity economy illustrates an alternative to both capitalism and state socialism: libertarian socialism. This chapter demonstrates that this left libertarianism is not a new utopia. It is rooted in the long (but marginal) history of libertarian socialism, which was born in the 19th century.

Originality – An economy managed from the left based on libertarian political principles seems to be a novel experiment. We seek to illustrate what this may look like using the example of the present solidarity economy. However, we also emphasise that this would imply a reversal of the political programme of the ‘Big Society’. It would imply the redistribution of economic and political power not only from the state to local communities, but also from company directors and their shareholders in order to realise not a charitable but an economically empowered civil society.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the theoretical basis of the claim that social cohesion is served better by processes within civil society than by government policies. This paper also aims to provide an empirical test using recent UK data. This paper combines literatures from sociology, political science and social psychology in an innovative way.

The approach used was analysis of a range of relevant literatures. Statistical analysis of the DCLG Citizenship Survey to examine aspects of cohesion was also undertaken.

The civil society argument has both strengths and weaknesses. Group processes and group interests in civil society may lead towards exclusion rather than inclusion. In the UK context, the civil society route to social cohesion is uncertain: the groupings that develop do not necessary promote commitments broadly across society and particularly between advantaged and disadvantaged citizens.

This article shows the value of social psychological as well as sociological and political science material. It identifies severe limitations as well as strengths in the kind of civil society approaches that have been promoted in recent discussion of the “Big Society”.

The civil society route to social cohesion is no substitute for the welfare state.

Moves to re‐centre social cohesion on civil society processes are unlikely to be successful.

The paper uses a combination of theoretical literatures from different disciplines, including social psychology. The paper uses an empirical test of the civil society thesis using up to date material.

The rise of the digital economy has led to a focus on how to manage big data and business intelligence for entrepreneurial purposes. The aim of this chapter is to discuss how to plan for open innovative ecosystems that harness the potential of new data analytics techniques in order to progress society. This means concentrating on the increasingly complex world of data analytics in order to derive information about potential entrepreneurial opportunities. The role of knowledge management in influencing an open innovation ecosystem predicated on big data and computing acumen is stated. This helps to understand how the future of the global economy relies on an open data policy that encourages the sharing and dissemination of information. Implications for managers are also suggested that emphasize the role of innovation ecosystems, data and government.

The purpose of this paper is to forward an extension of reception analysis as a way to incorporate and give insight to social media mediations and big data in a qualitative marketing perspective. We propose a research method that focuses on discursive developments in consumer debates for example on YouTube – a large-scale open-access social media platform – as opposed to the closed and tightknit communities investigated by netnography.

Online reception analysis

Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we find that big data can enrich online reception analyses by showing new aspects of weak tie online networks and consumers meaning making.

The potential of online reception analysis is to encompass a discursive perspective on consumer interactions on large-scale open-access social media and to be able to analyze socialities that do not represent shared cultures but are more representative of transitory everyday interactions.

Our method contributes to the current focus to define levels of analysis beyond research centered on individuals and individual interactions within groups to investigate other larger socialities. Further, our method also contributes by incorporating and investigating the mediatization of interaction that social media contributes with and therefore our methods actively work with the possibilities of social media. Hence, by extending the advances made by netnography into online spaces, online reception analysis can potentially inform the current status of big data research with a sociocultural methodological perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of volunteerism in three different case countries, namely, that of USA, UK and China while highlighting the role of the state, society and social capital.

The paper reviews the extant literature on the volunteering traditions in the chosen case study countries highlighting the idiosyncrasies while analysing implications for future research.

The paper highlights the role of the state, society and social capital in the chosen countries, each deriving its origins from the specific traditions in those countries.

This paper provides a conceptual review focusing on the key literature in the field. The authors have examined various academic texts and published materials.

This paper provided an update critically discussion on the concept of volunteerism in three different case countries.

This paper is highly relevant to academics and social policy makers. Moreover, this paper has been written from an international context.

The paper makes an original contribution by comparing and contrasting three important countries with different histories and traditions of volunteerism highlighting diversity of type and application.

There is still no universal definition of the third sector in Europe, but it can be seen as including all types of non-governmental not-for-profit entities such as non-profit organizations, mutuals, cooperatives, social enterprises and foundations. This article attempts to make sense of the current shifting conceptualization of the third sector in Europe. It is based on short country summaries of the images and concepts of the third sector in 13 European countries by EMES Network’s members, first presented in 2008 (Defourny and Pestoff, 2008; nine of them were recently revised and are found in the appendix to this article.). The perception and development of the third sector in Europe is closely related to the other major social governance institutions/mechanisms, like the market, state and community and through the third sector’s interaction with them. Moreover, many third sector organizations (TSOs) overlap with these other social institutions, resulting in varying degrees of hybridity and internal tensions experienced by them. TSOs can generate resources from their activities on the market, by providing services in partnership with the state and/or by promoting the interests of a given community or group. The country overviews document a growing professionalization of TSOs in most countries and a growing dependency of public funds to provide services. This has important theoretical and practical implications for orienting the articles included in this book. Thus, it can provide a key for better understanding the discussion and analysis in the remainder of this volume.

This article argues that the values underlying public policy and public services in the UK appear to have changed dramatically over the last 30 years. The post‐war consensus around collectivism is being replaced by the values of individualism and the market. The policy of personalisation, especially in health and social care, seems to reflect this. These changes bring inherent risks, especially for the most disabled and marginalised in society. It concludes by suggesting that there needs to be a re‐articulation by public sector leaders of the central values and essential role of public services in society.