2015/08/28 by Steve Rolfe · 3 citations
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Community Health and Development #Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering #Social Work Education and Practice
paper · doi:10.1080/03003930.2015.1081848
openalex publication_date 2015/08/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
The last two decades have witnessed a significant turn towards community participation in public policy around the globe, raising concerns that states are resorting to ‘government through community’, shifting responsibilities onto communities. In order to unpack the ambiguous rhetoric of policy statements, this article employs ideas from evaluation methodology to develop a generic theory of change for community participation policy. The model is then utilised to analyse and compare the UK Coalition Government’s Big Society/Localism agenda and the Scottish Government’s Community Empowerment approach, demonstrating the ways in which these represent a clear example of policy divergence, and potentially significant alternatives to state–community relations in the context of austerity. The article also demonstrates the potential wider applicability of ‘theories of change’ methodology for policy analysis.