The civil society...

From a historical perspective, the actual meaning of the concept of civil society has changed twice from its original, classical form. The first change occurred after the French Revolution, the second during the fall of communism in Europe.

Western Antiquity

The concept of civil society in its pre-modern classical republican understanding is usually connected to the early-modern thought of Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. However, it has much older history in the realm of political thought. Generally, civil society has been referred to as a political association governing social conflict through the imposition of rules that restrain citizens from harming one another.[21] In the classical period, the concept was used as a synonym for the good society, and seen as indistinguishable from the state. For instance, Socrates taught that conflicts within society should be resolved through public argument using ‘dialectic’, a form of rational dialogue to uncover truth. According to Socrates, public argument through ‘dialectic’ was imperative to ensure ‘civility’ in the polis and ‘good life’ of the people.[22] For Plato, the ideal state was a just society in which people dedicate themselves to the common good, practice civic virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation and justice, and perform the occupational role to which they were best suited. It was the duty of the ‘Philosopher king’ to look after people in civility. Aristotle thought the polis was an ‘association of associations’ that enables citizens to share in the virtuous task of ruling and being ruled.[21] His koinonia politike as political community.

The concept of societas civilis is Roman and was introduced by Cicero. The political discourse in the classical period, places importance on the idea of a ‘good society’ in ensuring peace and order among the people. The philosophers in the classical period did not make any distinction between the state and society. Rather they held that the state represented the civil form of society and ‘civility’ represented the requirement of good citizenship.[21] Moreover, they held that human beings are inherently rational so that they can collectively shape the nature of the society they belong to. In addition, human beings have the capacity to voluntarily gather for the common cause and maintain peace in society. By holding this view, we can say that classical political thinkers endorsed the genesis of civil society in its original sense.

The Middle Ages saw major changes in the topics discussed by political philosophers. Due to the unique political arrangements of feudalism, the concept of classical civil society practically disappeared from mainstream discussion. Instead conversation was dominated by problems of just war, a preoccupation that would last until the end of Renaissance.

Pre-modern history

The Thirty Years' War and the subsequent Treaty of Westphalia heralded the birth of the sovereign states system. The Treaty endorsed states as territorially-based political units having sovereignty. As a result, the monarchs were able to exert domestic control by emasculating the feudal lords and to stop relying on the latter for armed troops.[23] Henceforth, monarchs could form national armies and deploy a professional bureaucracy and fiscal departments, which enabled them to maintain direct control and supreme authority over their subjects. In order to meet administrative expenditures, monarchs controlled the economy. This gave birth to absolutism.[24] Until the mid-eighteenth century, absolutism was the hallmark of Europe.[24]

The absolutist concept of the state was disputed in the Enlightenment period.[25] As a natural consequence of Renaissance, Humanism, and the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment thinkers raised fundamental questions such as “What legitimacy does heredity confer?”, “Why are governments instituted?”, “Why should some human beings have more basic rights than others?”, and so on. These questions led them to make certain assumptions about the nature of the human mind, the sources of political and moral authority, the reasons behind absolutism, and how to move beyond absolutism. The Enlightenment thinkers believed in the inherent goodness of the human mind. They opposed the alliance between the state and the Church as the enemy of human progress and well-being because the coercive apparatus of the state curbed individual liberty and the Church legitimated monarchs by positing the theory of divine origin. Therefore, both were deemed to be against the will of the people.

Strongly influenced by the atrocities of Thirty Years' War, the political philosophers of the time held that social relations should be ordered in a different way from natural law conditions. Some of their attempts led to the emergence of social contract theory that contested social relations existing in accordance with human nature. They held that human nature can be understood by analyzing objective realities and natural law conditions. Thus they endorsed that the nature of human beings should be encompassed by the contours of state and established positive laws. Thomas Hobbes underlined the need of a powerful state to maintain civility in society. For Hobbes, human beings are motivated by self-interests (Graham 1997:23). Moreover, these self-interests are often contradictory in nature. Therefore, in state of nature, there was a condition of a war of all against all. In such a situation, life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Ibid: 25). Upon realizing the danger of anarchy, human beings became aware of the need of a mechanism to protect them. As far as Hobbes was concerned, rationality and self-interests persuaded human beings to combine in agreement, to surrender sovereignty to a common power (Kaviraj 2001:289). Hobbes called this common power, state, Leviathan.

John Locke had a similar concept to Hobbes about the political condition in England. It was the period of the Glorious Revolution, marked by the struggle between the divine right of the Crown and the political rights of Parliament. This influenced Locke to forge a social contract theory of a limited state and a powerful society. In Locke’s view, human beings led also an unpeaceful life in the state of nature. However, it could be maintained at the sub-optimal level in the absence of a sufficient system (Brown 2001:73). From that major concern, people gathered together to sign a contract and constituted a common public authority. Nevertheless, Locke held that the consolidation of political power can be turned into autocracy, if it is not brought under reliable restrictions (Kaviraj 2001:291). Therefore, Locke set forth two treaties on government with reciprocal obligations. In the first treaty, people submit themselves to the common public authority. This authority has the power to enact and maintain laws. The second treaty contains the limitations of authority, i. e., the state has no power to threaten the basic rights of human beings. As far as Locke was concerned, the basic rights of human beings are the preservation of life, liberty and property. Moreover, he held that the state must operate within the bounds of civil and natural laws.

Both Hobbes and Locke had set forth a system, in which peaceful coexistence among human beings could be ensured through social pacts or contracts. They considered civil society as a community that maintained civil life, the realm where civic virtues and rights were derived from natural laws. However, they did not hold that civil society was a separate realm from the state. Rather, they underlined the co-existence of the state and civil society. The systematic approaches of Hobbes and Locke (in their analysis of social relations) were largely influenced by the experiences in their period. Their attempts to explain human nature, natural laws, the social contract and the formation of government had challenged the divine right theory. In contrast to divine right, Hobbes and Locke claimed that humans can design their political order. This idea had a great impact on the thinkers in the Enlightenment period.

The Enlightenment thinkers argued that human beings are rational and can shape their destiny. Hence, no need of an absolute authority to control them. Both Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a critic of civil society, and Immanuel Kant argued that people are peace lovers and that wars are the creation of absolute regimes (Burchill 2001:33). As far as Kant was concerned, this system was effective to guard against the domination of a single interest and check the tyranny of the majority (Alagappa 2004:30).

Modern history

G.W.F. Hegel completely changed the meaning of civil society, giving rise to a modern liberal understanding of it as a form of market society as opposed to institutions of modern nation state.[5] Unlike his predecessors, the leading thinker of the Romanticism movement considered civil society as a separate realm, a "system of needs", that is the, “[stage of] difference which intervenes between the family and the state.” [26] Civil society is the realm of economic relationships as they exist in the modern industrial capitalist society,[27] for it had emerged at the particular period of capitalism and served its interests: individual rights and private property.[28] Hence, he used the German term "bürgerliche Gesellschaft" to denote civil society as "civilian society" – a sphere regulated by the civil code. This new way of thinking about civil society was followed by Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl Marx as well.[5] For Hegel, civil society manifested contradictory forces. Being the realm of capitalist interests, there is a possibility of conflicts and inequalities within it (ex: mental and physical aptitude, talents and financial circumstances). He argued that these inequalities influence the choices that members are able to make in relation to the type of work they will do. The diverse positions in Civil Society fall into three estates: the substantial estate (agriculture), the formal estate (trade and industry), and the universal estate (civil society).[29] A man is able to choose his estate, though his choice is limited by the aforementioned inequalities. However, Hegel argues that these inequalities enable all estates in Civil Society to be filled, which leads to a more efficient system on the whole.

Karl Marx followed Hegelian way of using concept of civil society. For Marx, civil society was the ‘base’ where productive forces and social relations were taking place, whereas political society was the 'superstructure'.[5] Agreeing with the link between capitalism and civil society, Marx held that the latter represents the interests of the bourgeoisie.[30] Therefore, the state as superstructure also represents the interests of the dominant class; under capitalism, it maintains the domination of the bourgeoisie. Hence, Marx rejected the positive role of state put forth by Hegel. Marx argued that the state cannot be a neutral problem solver. Rather, he depicted the state as the defender of the interests of the bourgeoisie. He considered the state to be the executive arm of the bourgeoisie, which would wither away once the working class took democratic control of society.[31]

The above view about civil society was criticized by Antonio Gramsci (Edwards 2004:10). Departing somehow from Marx, Gramsci did not consider civil society as coterminous with the socio-economic base of the state. Rather, Gramsci located civil society in the political superstructure. He viewed civil society as the vehicle for bourgeois hegemony, when it just represents a particular class. He underlined the crucial role of civil society as the contributor of the cultural and ideological capital required for the survival of the hegemony of capitalism.[32] Rather than posing it as a problem, as in earlier Marxist conceptions, Gramsci viewed civil society as the site for problem-solving. Misunderstanding Gramsci, the New Left assigned civil society a key role in defending people against the state and the market and in asserting the democratic will to influence the state.[33] At the same time, Neo-liberal thinkers consider civil society as a site for struggle to subvert Communist and authoritarian regimes.[34] Thus, the term civil society occupies an important place in the political discourses of the New Left and Neo-liberals.

Post-modern history

It is commonly believed that the post-modern way of understanding civil society was first developed by political opposition in the former Soviet bloc East European countries in the 1980s. However, research shows that communist propaganda had the most important influence on the development and popularization of the idea instead, in an effort to legitimize neoliberal transformation in 1989. According to theory of restructurization of welfare systems, a new way of using the concept of civil society became a neoliberal ideology legitimizing development of the third sector as a substitute for the welfare state. The recent development of the third sector is a result of this welfare systems restructuring, rather than of democratization.[16]

From that time stems a practice within the political field of using the idea of civil society instead of political society. Henceforth, postmodern usage of the idea of civil society became divided into two main : as political society and as the third sector – apart from plethora of definitions. The Washington Consensus of the 1990s, which involved conditioned loans by the World Bank and IMF to debt-laden developing states, also created pressures for states in poorer countries to shrink.[10] This in turn led to practical changes for civil society that went on to influence the theoretical debate. Initially the new conditionality led to an even greater emphasis on “civil society” as a panacea, replacing the state's service provision and social care,[10] Hulme and Edwards suggested that it was now seen as “the magic bullet.”

By the end of the 1990s civil society was seen less as a panacea amid the growth of the anti-globalization movement and the transition of many countries to democracy; instead, civil society was increasingly called on to justify its legitimacy and democratic credentials. This led to the creation by the UN of a high level panel on civil society.[35] However, in the 1990s with the emergence of the nongovernmental organizations and the new social movements (NSMs) on a global scale, civil society as a third sector became treated as a key terrain of strategic action to construct ‘an alternative social and world order.’ Post-modern civil society theory has now largely returned to a more neutral stance, but with marked differences between the study of the phenomena in richer societies and writing on civil society in developing states.

Link to the public sphere

Jürgen Habermas said that the public sphere encourages rational will-formation; it is a sphere of rational and democratic social interaction.[36] Habermas argues that even though society was representative of capitalist society, there are some institutions that were part of political society. Transformations in economy brought transformations to the public sphere. Though these transformations happen, a civil society develops when it emerges as non-economic and has a populous aspect, and when the state is not represented by just one political party. There needs to be a locus of authority, and this is where society can begin to challenge authority. Jillian Schwedler points out that civil society emerges with the resurrection of the public sphere when individuals and groups begin to challenge boundaries of permissible behaviour — for example, by speaking out against the regime or demanding a government response to social needs — civil society begins to take shape.[37]

Enemies of Civil Society

John A. Hall lists 5 distinct enemies of civil society:
Despotism: this is this idea of fear which discourages any type of group that's formed between society and government.
Revival of the tradition of republican civic virtues: these are qualities that hold a moral value or moral principle and amount to dispositions to obey.
Specific forms of nationalism: this would be where the rule of majority wins, and assimilation is used in order to form an ideal society.
Totalizing ideologies
Essentialist cultural ideals: these would be social cages of individuals that determine the function and value of that person in society.[38]

Institutions

academia
activist groups
charities
citizens' militia
civic groups
clubs (sports, social, etc.)
community foundations
community organizations
consumers/consumer organizations
cooperatives
churches
cultural groups
environmental groups
foundations
intermediary organizations for the voluntary and non-profit sector
men's groups
non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
non-profit organizations (NPOs)
policy institutions
political parties
private voluntary organizations (PVOs)
professional associations
religious organizations
social enterprises
support groups
trade unions
voluntary associations
women's groups

See also

Portal:Politics
Associationalism
Civic association
Civics
Civic virtue
Civil affairs
Civil liberties
Anarchism
Civil religion
Civil societarianism
Civil and political rights
Communitarianism
Constitutional economics
Cultural hegemony
Democracy
Foucault–Habermas debate
Global civics
Global governance
Human rights
Judiciary
Liberal nationalism
Mass society
Non-state actor
Open society
Political science
Public interest litigation
Rule of law
Rule According to Higher Law
Social capital
Social economy
Social entrepreneurship
Social innovation
Sociology
Power
Voluntary sector
Yearbook of International Organizations

Civil-society scholars

Jeffrey C. Alexander
Helmut Anheier
Andrew Arato
Phillip Blond
Benjamin Barber
Daniel Bell
Robert N. Bellah
Walden Bello
Jean L. Cohen
Michael Edwards
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Amitai Etzioni
Francis Fukuyama
Ernest Gellner
Susan George (political scientist)
Jürgen Habermas
Peter Dobkin Hall
Mary Kaldor
Barry Dean Karl
John Keane
David Korten
John W. Meyer
Frank Moulaert
Michael Oakeshott
Michael O'Neill
Elinor Ostrom
Robert D. Putnam
Michael Sandel
Charles Taylor
Lori Wallach

Notes

1.^ What is Civil Society civilsoc.org
2.^ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/civil+society?r=66
3.^ Civil society Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 11th Edition. Retrieved 2nd August 2012 from CollinsDictionary.com website: http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/civil-society
4.^ Pawel Stefan Zaleski, Neoliberalizm i spoleczenstwo obywatelskie (Neoliberalism and Civil Society), Wydawnictwo UMK, Torun 2012, pp. 122-142
5.^ a b c d e Zaleski, Pawel Stefan (2008). "Tocqueville on Civilian Society. A Romantic Vision of the Dichotomic Structure of Social Reality". Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte (Felix Meiner Verlag) 50.
6.^ Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, 1994:55-56
7.^ Almond, G., & Verba, S.; 'The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes And Democracy In Five Nations; 1989; Sage
8.^ 'ibid'
9.^ Robert D. Putnam, Robert Leonardi, Raffaella Y. Nanetti; Robert Leonardi, Raffaella Y. Nanetti (1994). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-07889-0.
10.^ a b c d Pawel Stefan Zaleski Global Non-governmental Administrative System: Geosociology of the Third Sector, [in:] Gawin, Dariusz & Glinski, Piotr [ed.]: “Civil Society in the Making,” IFiS Publishers, Warszawa 2006
11.^ Agnew, John; 2002; 'Democracy and Human Rights' in Johnston, R.J., Taylor, Peter J. and Watts, Michael J. (eds); 2002; Geographies of Global Change; Blackwell
12.^ [1] Pithouse, Richard (2005) Report Back from the Third World Network Meeting Accra, 2005. Centre for Civil Society : 1-6.
13.^ The Politics of the Governed: Popular Politics in Most of the World, 2004
14.^ Paper: Interrogating the Civil. Engaging Critically with the Reality and Concept of Civil Society, 2010
15.^ Pollock, Graham.'Civil Society Theory and Euro-Nationalism' , Studies In Social & Political Thought, Issue 4, March 2001, pp. 31–56
16.^ a b Pawel Stefan Zaleski, Neoliberalizm i spoleczenstwo obywatelskie (Neoliberalism and Civil Society), Wydawnictwo UMK, Torun 2012
17.^ Buchanan Entry at Nobel site
18.^ Peter Barenboim, Natalya Merkulova. "The 25th Anniversary of Constitutional Economics: The Russian Model and Legal Reform in Russia, in The World Rule of Law Movement and Russian Legal Reform", edited by Francis Neate and Holly Nielsen, Justitsinform, Moscow (2007).
19.^ Mann, Michael; 1984; The Autonomous Power of The State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and Results; European Journal of Sociology 25: pp185-213
20.^ United Nations: Partners in Civil Society
21.^ a b c Edwards 2004. p 6.
22.^ O'Connell 1999
23.^ Brown 2001:70
24.^ a b Knutsen 1997:80–118
25.^ Chandhoke 1995:88
26.^ Hegel, G. F. W. Philosophy Of Right, edited by Allen W. Wood (Cambridge University Press, 1991) §184
27.^ Stillman, Peter G. Hegel’s Civil Society: A Locus of Freedom, appearing in Polity, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Summer 1980) pp. 622 – 646. p. 623
28.^ Dhanagare 2001:169
29.^ Hegel, G. F. W. Philosophy Of Right, edited by Allen W. Wood (Cambridge University Press, 1991) §202
30.^ Edwards 2004:10
31.^ See Lenin, 2010, for a summary of Marx's thought on the State and an introduction to Marxist thought on the state up until 1917. For a detailed discussion of Marx's thought on the state and civil society see Draper, 1977 & 1986 (Volumes 1 and 2)
32.^ Ehrenberg 1999:208
33.^ Ibid:30
34.^ Ibid: 33
35.^ http://www.un.org/reform/civilsociety/bios.shtml
36.^ Habermas, J. (1974). The public sphere: an encyclopaedia article. New German Critique, 3, 49-55.
37.^ Schwedler, 1995:5
38.^ Hall, J. (1995). Civil society: Theory, history, comparison . Polity

References

Alagappa, Muthiah. Civil Society and Political Change in Asia. Stanford: Standford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8047-5097-1
Edwards, Michael. Civil Society. Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7456-3133-9.
Draper, Hal Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy, Volume 2: The Politics of Social Classes). New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977 & 1986.
Gosewinkel, Dieter: Civil Society, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: August 24, 2011.
Hemmati, Minu. Dodds, Felix. Enayati, Jasmin. and McHarry,Jan downloadable copy of Multistakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability:Beyond Deadlock and Conflict
O'Connell,Brian.Civil Society: The Underpinnings of American Democracy.Medford, Mass:Tufts University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-87451-924-1.
Perlas, Nicolas, Shaping Globalization – Civil Society, Cultural Power and Threefolding. ISBN 0-9583885-8-X .
Pollock, Graham.Civil Society Theory and Euro-Nationalism, Studies In Social & Political Thought, Issue 4, March 2001, pp. 31–56
Tvedt, Terje. Angels of Mercy or Development Diplomats. NGOs & Foreign Aid. Oxford: James Currey, 1998.
Whaites, Alan, Let's get civil society straight: NGOs and Political Theory, Development in Practice, 1996, [2][dead link]
Whaites, Alan, NGOs, Civil Society and the State: Avoiding theoretical extremes in real world issues,' Development in Practice 1998 [3][dead link]
Zaleski, Pawel Stefan, Tocqueville on Civilian Society: A Romantic Vision of the Dichotomic Structure of Social Reality, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte Bd. 50/2008


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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society