PRIA

Background

The Concept of Civil Society

The idea of 'civil society' has achieved prominence in political and developmental discourse over the past two decades, particularly in connection with successive waves of democratisation, beginning in Latin America and Eastern Europe, and spreading across the developing world. In normative terms, civil society has been widely seen as an increasingly crucial agent for limiting authoritarian government, strengthening popular empowerment, reducing the socially atomising and unsettling effects of market forces, enforcing political accountability, and improving the quality and inclusiveness of governance. Reconsideration of the limits of state action has also led to an increased awareness of the potential role of civic organisations in the provision of public goods and social services, either separately or in some kind of 'synergistic' relationship with state institutions.

However, general notions of 'civil society' have often been overly optimistic and have disregarded the ambiguities and conflicts inherent in real civil societies. Moreover, the potentially positive impact of civil society is hard to realise in countries where states are strong and civil organisations still weak, especially amid political conflict and economic decline.

Definitions of 'civil society' are bewilderingly diverse and the differences between them are often rooted in alternative social and political philosophies which are hard to reconcile.

In the current analysis of civil society in poor, emergent, transitional and industrialised societies, one can discern two underlying understandings of the term - the political and the sociological conceptions. The political conception of civil society is rooted in the Anglo-American tradition of liberal-democratic theory which identifies civic institutions and political activity as an essential component of the emergence of a particular type of political society based on the principles of citizenship, rights, democratic representation and the rule of law.

The sociological conception of civil society is more practical, that of an intermediate associational realm situated between the state on the one side and the basic building blocks of society on the other (individuals, families and firms), inhabited by social organisations with some degree of autonomy and voluntary participation on the part of their members.