Of Civil Society Glossary of Terms

• Civil society


  A term that both describes and anticipates a complex and dynamic ensemble of legally protected nongovernmental institutions that tend to be nonviolent, self-organizing, self-reflexive, and permanently in tension, both with each other and with the governmental institutions that "frame," constrict and enable their activities
• For nearly a century after 1850, the language of civil society virtually disappeared from intellectual and political life and, as recently as 2 decades ago, the term itself remained strange sounding and unfashionable, or was greeted in some circles by cynicism and hostility
• Since then, around the world, the term civil society has become both a master category in the human sciences and a key phrase often used by politicians, corporate executives, journalists, charitable foundations, human rights organizations, and citizens
• Civil society (European roots)

  Refers to a realm of social life - market exchanges, charitable groups, clubs and voluntary associations, independent churches and publishing houses - institutionally separated from territorial state institutions
• The language of civil society was a vital ingredient in the resistance to totalitarian regimes after the crushing of the Prague Spring; and it has featured in most political efforts to push back or overthrow dictatorship, whether in Taiwan, Brazil, South Africa, or Iran
• The language of civil society has also been applied to such disparate political phenomena as the decline and restructuring of welfare states, the rise of "free market" economic strategies, and the growth of social movements
• Arguments in favour of civil society

  • It gives preferential treatment to individuals' daily freedom from violence and other incivilities
  • It enables groups and individuals freely within the law to define and express their various social identities, as equals who have feelings for others and, thus, the capacity for trust and solidarity
  • Freedom of communication is impossible without networks of variously-sized non-state communication media
  • Politically regulated and socially constrained markets are superior devices for eliminating all those factors of production that fail to perform according to current standards of efficiency
• Democracy


  A special type of political system and way of life in which civil society and government tend to function as two necessary moments, separate but contiguous, distinct but interdependent, internal articulations of a system in which the exercise of power, whether in the spheres of civil society or government, is subject to public monitoring, compromise, and agreement
• The global talk of civil society is evidently bound up with the dramatic growth, especially during the second half of the twentieth century, of nongovernmental business and civic organizations operating within and beyond the borders of territorial states
• The contemporary renewal of interest in civil society first began during the second half of the 1960s in Japan
• In Latin America, neo-Gramscian versions of the concept of civil society were subsequently used as a theoretical weapon against dictatorship
• Scholarly studies of sub-Saharan Africa emphasized how associational life - farmers' organizations, lawyers' and journalists' associations, mineworkers' unions, Christian churches and Islamic brotherhoods - are most likely to thrive in the presence of effective states; and how, paradoxically, weak states can become stronger - more effective at promoting the accumulation and better distribution of wealth, and improving their own legitimacy and power potential - by allowing a good measure of pluralism in associational life
• There have been many studies of Muslim-majority states guided by civil society perspectives
• Approaches to using the term "civil society"

  • Empirical-analytic: Using the term as an ideal-type to analyze and interpret the empirical contours of past, present, or emergent relationships between social and political forces and institutions
  • Pragmatic: Using the language of civil society as a guide to formulating a social and political strategy or action program for achieving a predefined or assumed political good
  • Normative: Using the language of civil society to make judgments about what ought to be the case, and to recommend courses of political action
• Civil society


  The language of civil society is used to develop an explanatory understanding of a complex sociopolitical reality by means of theoretical distinctions, empirical research and informed judgments about its origins, patterns of development and (unintended) consequences
• Empirical-analytic interpretations of civil society


  Usually alter perceptions of what is or is not significant within any given reality, the term is mainly used for observational purposes: that is, to describe that reality, or criticize prevailing descriptions of it, in order better to clarify what is otherwise a potentially confusing and disorientating reality
• Pragmatic usage of the term civil society


  As a guide to formulating a social and political strategy or action program for achieving a predefined or assumed political good
• Pragmatic usage of civil society is traceable to the last quarter of the eighteenth century, to recommendations, like Thomas Paine's revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense (1776), about how best to contest despotic power by establishing the earthworks of civil society
• Recent comparative studies of the defeat of various forms of political despotism in southern Europe, Latin America and postcommunist countries show the vital role played by civil society in the transition towards democracy, and its subsequent consolidation
• Normative standpoint on civil society

  To highlight the ethical superiority of a politically guaranteed civil society compared with other types of government
• Normative justifications of civil society

  • Civil society as the earthly expression of God-given natural rights
  • Civil society as a moment in the actualization of the ethical idea, of mind (Geist) actively working its way into the existing world
  • Civil society as a passing moment in the development and overcoming of modern, class-divided bourgeois society
  • Civil society as a spontaneous group-centered expression of "loving kindness and fraternity"
  • Civil society as a customary, time-bound ensemble of precious institutions and practices that are confined to certain regions of the earth
• Some critics have concluded that civil society is a muddled, essentially contested ideal
• Normative justification of civil society

  The term civil society is a signifier of plurality, the friend and guardian of dynamic difference
• Attempts to build grand normative theories of civil society should be doubted, as to speak of civil society is to warn against the harm caused by organized attempts to impose on others particular norms not of their choosing</b>
• Normative support for civil society has no need of so-called Absolutes, it implies suspicion of the moralizing faith in Grand Ideals such as the State, Nation, Progress, Socialism, Free Markets, God, Truth, or Ethics
• Support for civil society implies the duty of citizens and policy makers to defend greater pluralism – to cast serious doubt on dogmatic, falsely universal norms by giving greater emphasis to the recognition of institutional complexity and public accountability as vital barriers against dangerous accumulations of power, whenever and wherever they develop
• To speak favorably of civil society is to be committed everywhere to the construction, preservation, and development of a legally protected nongovernmental order, whose diverse identities, mediated by representative mechanisms such as political parties and independent communication media, together ensure that hierarchies and abuses of power are checkable
• Those who practically deny civil society in this normative sense are probably arrogant monists – and most likely manipulators, bullies, tyrants, or totalitarians