7 The Concept of Civil Society: Emergence and Revival

Pampa Mukherjee

THE CONCEPT OF CIVIL SOCIETY: EMERGENCE AND REVIVAL

Abstract: The growing complexities of societies and rising indicators of poverty, unemployment, corruption, disparities, violence, financial crunch etc. have resulted in a wave of discontent among the masses with regard to the role and capacity of the state in dealing with the crisis. This has generated a stimulus for an alternative organisation that could fill the gap between the desires of the people and the incapacity of the state to fulfil those expectations. The civil society has been effective in prioritising needs of the people and in finding space for public engagement with the state. It has played a catalytic role in transition towards a democratic order as against coercive power and has since then been instrumental in establishing a more accountable and transparent political system. In the process, it has evolved as – a) a discursive collective influencing the state, b) as dissident movements challenging state, and c) as agents of social services enabling and aiding the state. Civil society movements have survived through the challenges from the state and at times worked in cooperation with the state. Its relationship with the state has varied across political systems and various societies. Considering the wide patterns in definitions and growing visibility across societies and cultures, scholars have lately been encouraged to include it as an important element in the study of comparative politics.

The unit studies the conceptual fluctuations in the understanding of civil society right from the classical to the medieval and modern theorisation. It delves in to the relationship between the state and civil society through liberal and Marxist perspectives. It looks in to the emergence, nature and changing role of the civil society with special reference to the developments in the communist regime of the Central-Eastern Europe (Poland and Hungary) and advanced democracies of the West (America and Britain).

INTRODUCTION

Civil society has emerged as an important phenomenon to the studying of issues of governance in political science. The complex variety inherent in the nature and concept has made civil society an integral part in the literature of comparative politics. The idea of civil society has been taken up by as well as linked to the developments of the western political system. Ever since its emergence, it has played a central role in framing and influencing state policy decisions through the employment of various mechanisms such as, participation, discussion, protests and service delivery. Starting with a Platonic explanation of seeing civil society as a larger unity desirous of countering private interests of a few, it became part of political parlance in the 16th and 17th century Europe. With the process of democratic deepening and more recently with globalisation, it has evolved as force not only affecting policy decisions and ensuring state accountability but also as an entity aiding state in delivery of services and taking up matters of global concern. Therefore, due to the diversity in the nature and role of civil society, it has become an important unit for comparison in political science.

MEANING AND NATURE OF CIVIL SOCIETY

Civil society is one of the most flexibly used concepts in the history of political theory. Although traces of the idea of some association of the civil kind can be seen much before during the period of Enlightenment, formal conceptualisation of the term is attributed to the theoretical developments of the 18th and 19th century.

Meaning of the concept:

Civil society is essentially regarded as an integral feature of liberal democratic system where citizens have a freedom to organise, deliberate, participate and affect policy decisions on lines of securing the rights and interests of the members of the society. It denotes an empowered mass of population seeking to correct the democratic malfunctioning. Stepan Linz defined civil society as an “arena of polity where a self-organization of groups, movements, and individuals, relatively autonomous from the state, attempt to articulate values, create associations and solidarities, and advance their interests” (Linz/Stepan 1996: 7) According to Gordon White’s contemporary perspective, civil society is understood as “An intermediate associational realm between state and family and populated by organizations which are separate from the state, enjoy autonomy in relation to the state and are formed voluntarily by members of society to protect or advance their interest or values’’(White: 1996:182)

The normative theory of civil society includes protection of the people against abuse of power by the state, mediation between state and private sphere, socialization, integration and communication as important functions of the civil society (Croissant/Lauth/Merkel 2000: 19). Thus, what emerges is that, civil society is-

a.An autonomous and voluntary group, association or community of individuals

b.It can be a formal or informal organisation or a movement by the collective

c.The members of the group unite with a common agenda primarily for protection of a shared public interest

d. It seeks to replace top-down authoritarian model by bottom-up model of democracy.

e.  It is not a part of the state yet shares a permanent intricate relationship with the state

f.   Its emergence and sustenance is dependent upon the political environment.

g.  It can thrive in an open democratic political order. That is, the presence of active CSOs indicates the prevalence of a democratic order and vice versa

Forms of civil society:

Civil society can be said to have various forms such as a non-profit organisation, NGOs and charitable organisations (OXFAM, Amnesty), religious bodies, social worker groups, unions, research groups, media, member-specific organisations (women’s groups), environmental groups, professional associations, pressure groups, networked groups, advocacy groups, revolutionary groups, movements (anti-capitalist activism, anti-globalisation movements) and so on. These can be clubbed, in terms of their purpose, in to four broad categories as those associated with1-

    i.   Humanitarian tasks

ii.    Development tasks

iii.   Human rights protection

iv.   Peace-building mechanisms

Idealised with characteristics of benevolence and charity benefitting the members of the society, the role of civil society is recognised by its contribution in various fields (social, political, economic and legal) in terms of preserving general interest. It strives to establish a more inclusionary and participative democratic order. Broadly, it can be seen as committed to five-pronged motive of-

a.       ensuring accountability of the authorities – monitoring state’s functioning

b.      enabling citizens to organise and voice their concerns – spreading a awareness and mobilising people – working towards collective goals

c.       Serving the needy and the disadvantaged

d.      Influencing the decision-making process and giving effect to state policies and services

e.       enabling the state by offering relevant data and working support towards protecting the interests of the public

Nature of civil society engagement:

There are three ways of achieving the purpose – by forcing the state to fulfil its task or by taking up the agenda through self efforts or both processes simultaneously. These are performed by either reacting or getting involved with the state. Thus, although it is independent of the state but shares a constant engagement with the state. Neither does it seek

1  http://3phumansecurity.org/site/component/content/article/34-projects/117-services to overpower the state nor does it allow the state to repress (Drydyk, J. 1991: 459). This, it does by application of pressure mechanisms against the state or by raising awareness and organising movements over specific issues concerning its members or by sharing demands of the collective at political forums or through participation in deliberations to influence policies. Although there has always been an uncertainty with regard to the extent of involvement permissible, it is dependent on the nature of political system as well as the level of empowerment of civil society to bring about the desired impact.

HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT OF CIVIL SOCIETY

Theoretical roots:

Although the term was formally employed in its modern sense the Scottish Enlightenment in the famous Adam Ferguson’s An Essay on the History of Civil Society and that in German Idealism, the roots of the concept are found in the traditional philosophies of Greek and Roman thinkers. Classical political philosophy defined civil society as a concept corresponding to the state. The ancient Greek and Roman language clearly referred it as a political society, a state. The philosophy of Cicero’s societus civilus, Aristotle’s koinônia politiké, Locke’s civil government (civil or political society), Kant’s Gelleschaft (Constitutional state), Rousseau’s état civil (civil society associated with features of popular democracy), all more or less implied at civil society as a civilised and rational society coterminous with the state. Contractualists saw civil society as a social bond which was non-existent in the state of nature. However, there were some differences in their theorisation of the concept. Where Hobbes saw it as a monarchist civil society, Locke referred to it in liberal-constitutional terms and explained civil society as a political society which they enter by making a consensual contract and which, while limiting the government, is assigned with judicial, legislative and executive powers aimed at the good of the people. More generally, inthese systems, men participated (whether in hypothetical condition or real states) in the public sphere and settled all disputes according to a system of laws (Kumar, K. 1993:377). Thus, it corresponds to a nationalist view of civil society where citizens are bonded with a common law of the land. In continuation to this interlinked understanding, Immanuel Kant, Adam Ferguson, Pufendorf and other  enlightenment thinkers upheld  the  state as a facilitator  enabling freedom and equality in the society and regulating and preserving the fabric of this civil or political society. Kant elaborated civil society as a ‘political arrangement which secures individuals’ rights through public laws’(Keane, John. 1988:35). Thus, the line between the civil society and the state was unidentifiable.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C), a Roman thinker employed the term civil society in the 1st century BC. It was a society where members lived together as citizens, abided by civil laws and led a civilized life. Thus, it excluded the barbarian communities from identifying themselves as civil society.

Adam Ferguson introduced the term civil society for the first time in his essay An Essay on History of Civil Society published in 1767. He explained it as a society free from barbaric practices; an urban set up where commercial activities flourished.1 He referred it as a collective of individuals somewhere in between the two ends of family and the state; a community as that of agriculturalists, craftsmen etc.

The political philosophy of the late 18th and early 19th century, however, saw it as juxtaposed to the state and as an intermediary institution between the state and the society.  The break in the synonymy of civil society and state was more an outcome of late 18th Century British and American thought. The 18th  century developments as highlighted in the writings of Tom Paine, Hegel, Alex de Tocqueville, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith led to gradual delinking of the state and civil society. They made historic contributions in providing a more acceptable understanding of civil society and marking clearer borders between the civil society as distinct from the political state. Commonly, it was seen as an entity between the family and state; a community where individuals looked beyond their private interests and collaborated with each other in pursuance of a common goal. However, in doing so, Hegel did not overlook the importance of individual’s self interest and at the same time advocated the protection of individual rights and property through appropriate mechanisms of state institutions. Thus, in Hegelian theory, a civil society comprised of a vast gamut of social, civic and economic institutions such as religious groups, professionals, bureaucracy, courts, welfare agencies, educational establishments etc. (without recognising non-selfish voluntary bodies promoting mutual aid, charity such as, Friendly Societies in 19th C England )

Hegel explained that the society operated at three levels – family (bonds by birth); the civil society (a combination of indivualism and selfishness – das Prinzip der Personlichkeit); and the state (comprised of citizens oriented towards the common interest of the whole political community).1

Contemporary notions of civil society and democratic state:

The renewed interest in the idea of civil society emerged in the wake of Eastern European political developments in the 19th century. The modern conception of civil society reaffirmed civil society as an arena between the individual or family and the state. According to Perry Anderson (Kumar,K 1993:383), civil society designated all those institutions and mechanisms outside the boundaries of the state system proper. Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato (1994) defined civil society as a space comprised of voluntary and non-state actors outside the realm of the state as well as capitalist economy. Charles Taylor identified civil society, capable of flourishing in a liberal system, as (Schipers,B. 1988: 347) – “a web of autonomous associations, independent of the state, which [binds] citizens together in matters of common concern, and [which] by their mere existence or action could have an effect on public policy.”

Contemporary thinkers Laclau and Mouffe highlighted the weakness of the classical Marxist way of visualising civil society as bourgeois driven by private economic interests. They promoted civil society as a field of democratic struggle rather than an arena of market-state debate. Social movements were an attribute of this civil society. A rectification of Marx’s reductionist approach (discussed later in the unit) was also previously attempted by later Marxists such as Gramsci and Althusser. They refrained from reducing civil society to a narrow economic sphere and saw it as rather a wider set of civic, religious and professional, eductaional, cultural informal associations between the economy and the state. These came to be considered as essential features of a well developed civil society and were seen as possessing potential to preserve order and protect the pre-revolutionary state from social uprisings. For instance, something that happened with the Tsarist Russia which, due to lack of civil society, was exposed to revolutionary attacks from the Bolsheviks. Gramsci, therefore, once again harmonised the functioning of political state with civil society. His influence was evident in the continued works of Althusser and Michel Foucault (Governmentality: 1991) who also highlighted on the political functions of civil society.

CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE STATE:

To the question of relationship between the state and the civil society, there were differences of opinion. At one end, there were theories compelling the state to limit its role to as much necessary towards making civil society efficient for its self regulation. That is, the more effective the civil society, the less was the need of the state.(Schipers, B. 1988:383)

Contrarily, another viewpoint treated civil society as subordinate to the state which was in the interest of the civil society itself. It explained the need of a state as necessary for sustenance of a civil society.

Marxist perspective – Classical Marxism understood civil society as entirely a different entity. While accepting Hegelian idea (early 19th C) of civil society as an association of private individuals pursuing private interests, Marx equated this association with bourgeois society based on class interest. He forwarded the idea of civil society as a society of self-seeking economic actors (bourgeoisie). (Marx. 2000) Unlike Hegel and Paine or Tocqueville, Marx completely ignored the democratic principles of civil society associations. The later Marxists like Gramsci revised the reductionist approach of Marx.

Liberal perspective – Theorists from the liberal school like J.S Mill and Tocqueville reacted against state intervention which was seen as paralysing the independent functioning of civil society affairs. They warned against the abuse of state power as usurping the freedom of citizens and advocated the principles of democracy and participation through civil society. Tocqueville, for instance, extensively distinguished between the state society and civil society. According to him, state was a set of formal governmental bodies such as Parliament, courts, police, bureaucracy, whereas civil society implied at non-state civilised associations of individuals such as parties, public opinion, churches, schools, commercial organisations, organisations for leisure and recreation etc. that simultaneously check the excessive centralisation of power by the state. Unlike Marx, Tocqueville excluded the economy from the civil society while exploring the nature of American civil society in the mid-19th C.

Radical school of thought 1970s-1980s – deemed the role of civil society as central to establishing a democratic state. The civil society, in the late 19th century Europe, claimed a radical role towards bringing about a political transformation by replacing the authoritarian state by a democratic order. It was characterised more as an opposition force challenging the communist regime of the Soviet bloc in Central-Eastern Europe. The relevance of radical civil society theorised in the works of Kuron (Poland) and Kurad (Hungary) became debatable due to internal difficulties and in the aftermath of the successful implantation of liberal democracy post-1989 post-communism. Thus, the focus shifted to liberal civil society with a participatory approach.

Liberal Theory made individuals as the starting point. It stressed on respecting the freedom and rights of individuals. With respect to intervention by the state, there are differences of opinion. For instance, champions of neo-liberalism criticise welfare state and emphasise on ‘rolling back’ the state

Welfare State – J.S Mill propounded the theory of welfare state. It provides for welfare services to its citizens such as, social security, public health services, benefits to the old age, subsidies to the needy and so on.

Marxist Theory explains that the society is divided in to two antagonistic classes – the haves and have-nots. The conflict arises due to fault in the mode of production which is controlled by the capitalist class and the proletariat ends up being exploited. The state is a tool in the hands of the bourgeois class.

Contemporary political thought

Building on the liberal tradition, the modern theories essentially stressed on the positive role of civil society and informed that, “No emancipation is possible in the modern world…without a strong civil society that can strengthen the public sphere and can provide a haven from and a centre of resistance to the Behemoth state.”(Kumar, K. 1993:381) Although the state, through its policy of welfare, seems to have attempted to bridge the gap between the individual and the political state, it has failed to surpass the significance of civil society as one of the most potent tool for democratisation. It has emerged as a tool for ensuring state accountability and for protecting the interests of its members. In compliance to this viewpoint, John Keane has dealt with the state-civil society dichotomy in a more holistic manner. According to him, state and civil society are not to be seen as independent of each other, rather “civil society and state .. must become the condition for each other’s democratisation.”(Keane in Kumar,K. 1993:385) With this, civil society could hold state accountable and state could ensure vigil over the anarchical tendencies of civil society which might lead to the rise of newer forms of inequality. Thus, in a modern liberal-democratic framework, state laws and mechanisms have relevance of their own which, when overlooked, are likely to disrupt the orderly functioning of the social system. Both, state and civil society are to guard each other without trespassing each other’s spheres of activity.

In the era of globalisation, there has been an uprising of new social movements beyond regional boundaries. The post-modern perspective throws light on the spread of social networks at global scale and the emergence of civil society as a powerful ‘third sector’. Robert Putnam, in his seminal work Bowling Alone and “Making Democracy work: Civic Tradition in Modern Italy”, explained the significance of civil society and established that a responsible government is a consequence of a strong civil society or social capital.

Globalisation, as defined by Giddens, implies at the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa. Simply put, it is the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness. It is associated with the integration of the world economy.

Today, the term civil society has moved beyond its purpose of striving for popular democracy to, what World Bank defines, a wide array of non-governmental and non-profit organisations such as, labour unions, charitable groups, professional associations, educational institutions, corporations and business groups. They seek to protect the interests of their members and of the larger society in terms of ethical, scientific, religious cultural and philanthropic values. Thus, although the concept has varied from time to time and in different social systems, there are evident continued commonalities in its basic understanding. These are best summarised in the definition of Earnest Gellner –

“Civil society is that set of diverse non-governmental institutions which is strong enough to counter balance the state and, while not preventing the state from fulfilling its role of keeper of the peace and arbitrator between major interests can nevertheless prevent it from dominating and atomizing the rest of the society.” (Gellner. 1994:5)

In the final analysis, what emerges is that civil society is a sphere distinct from state and market and working towards active participation of its members with the purpose of securing their particular as well as larger interests

References and Essential Readings:

• Almond and others (2004), ed., Comparative Politics Today, Pearson Education Black, C.E., ed., Comparative Modernization: A Reader, Free Press
• Connell, James O. “The Concept of Modernization”, in C.E. Black’s, ed., Comparative Modernization: A Reader, Free Press
• Dahrendorf, Ralf (1992), “Democracy and Modernity: Notes on the European Experience”, in S.N. Eisenstadt’s, ed., Democracy and Modernity, Leiden University, the Netherlands Deutsch, Karl W. “Social Mobilization and Political Development”, The American Political Science Review, Sepetember 1961, vol.LV, no.3
• Einhorn, Eric S. (2005), “Liberalism and Social Democracy in Western Europe”, in Howard J. Wiarda’s ed., Comparative Politics: Critical Concepts in Political Science, London and New York: Routledge
• Giddens, Anthony (1990), The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press
• Huntington, Samuel “The Change to Change: Modernization, Development and Politics”, inC.E. Black’s, ed., Comparative Modernization: A Reader, Free Press
• Kreutzmann, Hermann “From Modernization Theory Towards the Clash of Civilizations: Directions and Paradigm Shifts in Samuel Huntington’s analysis and prognosis of Global Development”, GeoJournal, 1998, vol.46, no.4Pye, Lucian (1966), Aspects of Political Development, Little Brown
• Sarangi, Asha (2009), ed., Language Politics in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press
• Wiarda, Howard J. (2005), ed., Comparative Politics: Concepts in Political Science, London
• and New York: Routledge