Abstract:

Former British Prime Minister Cameron took "Big Society" program as a good way to break through the dilemma of social and economic development, which drew widespread attention and aroused academic debates around the world. The existing literature focuses on the origin, content and function of the "Big Society" policy, without considering the performance evaluation. By utilizing the British government's official data, this paper aims to comprehensively evaluate the performance of the projects of the "Big Society" policy in the past five years. Overall, the British government has not been able to complete the original core targets (i.e., empowering communities, opening up public services and social action). But there have been some positive effects and changes, such as enhancing resilience of voluntary organizations, streamlining and decentralization of public institutions and revitalizing the idle funds, etc. Summing up the UK experience of "Big Society" policy and its performance may provide some new inspirations for our developing social forces and enhancing public services against the "new normal" background.

Key words: British Big Society Policy, empowering communities, opening up public services, social action, social organization, resilience of voluntary organizations