The Big Society idea is designed to reduce the role of the state in civil society and, in its place, increase popular participation.
The paradox is that an atempt is being made create this new civic culture through the very state it is meant to replace !.
Cultural change of this kind needs two things - first it needs time. You cannot change the civic culture in a few years, it is generational in nature. Second it must be bottom-up, not top-down change. Nobody is going to volunteer, create voluntary associations, participate or exercise democratic rights because central government tells them to. They wil do it because they want to or they have to.
Fortunately, there is an already highly developed civic culture and sociaty in the UK so we should not worry when this policy withers, as it surely will (anybody remember John Major's 'back to basics' campaign in the 1990s ?).
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I dispute that "there is an already highly developed civic culture and sociaty in the UK."
There may have been in a bygone era, but the lack of community spirit is startling these days- ask your gran for comparions to the 'old days'.
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