Big society, little justice? Community renewable energy and the politics of localism
Big society, little justice? Community renewable energy and the politics of localism
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DOI：
10.1080/13549839.2013.792044
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发表时间：
2014-01-01
影响因子：
2.4
通讯作者：
Ross, Simon
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Catney, Philip;MacGregor, Sherilyn;Ross, Simon
本文对“大社会（BS）地方主义”提出了挑战，认为它是忽视社会正义考虑的贫困地方主义思想的一个例子。我们通过对英国地方主义话语最近转向的批判性考察来做到这一点，这些话语强调自力更生的社区，并设想国家的作用减弱。我们建立了一个启发式区分积极和消极的方法对地方主义。我们认为，联合政府的BS计划符合消极的地方主义框架，因为它从一种意识形态假设开始，即国家是社区一级协会活动的障碍，它应该发挥最小的作用。“BS地方主义”（我们这样称呼它）对社会政策的制定产生了影响，但它也对环境目标的实现产生了影响。我们认为，这种地方主义的最新化身在解决需要集体行动的问题方面基本上是无效的，因为它忽视了不平等在抑制联合社会发展方面所起的重要作用。根据在社区规模上进行的初步研究，我们认为，将环境政策的成功押注于当地民间社会填补国家紧缩后留下的空白的能力，可能会导致根本没有任何行动。
This paper challenges "Big Society (BS) Localism", seeing it as an example of impoverished localist thinking which neglects social justice considerations. We do this through a critical examination of recent turns in the localist discourse in the UK which emphasise self-reliant communities and envisage a diminished role for the state. We establish a heuristic distinction between positive and negative approaches to localism. We argue that the Coalition Government's BS programme fits with a negative localist frame as it starts from an ideological assumption that the state acts as a barrier to community-level associational activity and that it should play a minimal role. "BS localism" (as we call it) has been influential over the making of social policy, but it also has implications for the achievement of environmental goals. We argue that this latest incarnation of localism is largely ineffective in solving problems requiring collective action because it neglects the important role that inequalities play in inhibiting the development of associational society. Drawing upon preliminary research being undertaken at the community scale, we argue that staking environmental policy success on the ability of local civil society to fill the gap left after state retrenchment runs the risk of no activity at all.