There are no easy answers to difficult choices on Big Society
Over 100 academics from all over the world, with a small handful of Irish, each presented their research on different aspects of social policy. This is one of the nice parts of my job. One the one hand, there’s the work associated with doing the research, writing the paper; and then there’s the ritual of presenting work to a bunch of unknown colleagues who will ask questions about why it was done this way and not that, and whether or not the claims made for it really hold up. But on the other hand there’s a wonderful chance to sample everybody else’s research, to get a flavour of the ideas and arguments that everyone else is interested in and to see your own ideas and research in a much broader and more diverse context.
The title of the conference was Bigger societies, Smaller governments, and from this alone you can get a sense of the key themes running through a lot of the work. Overall, much of the conference activity was directed towards an interrogation of what the Big Society idea, currently being promoted by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in the UK, actually means. This is an idea that we in Ireland should also be familiar with: first, because many of the issues it raises are pertinent to our own organisation of government and society; and second, because it’s usually the case that at some point or another ‘big ideas from Over’ wash up on our shores in one form or another, only to be recycled by our own politicians and media in reference to Irish problems and policies.
