8 Understanding the role of Civil Society in Advanced Western Societies: A Comparative Analysis

Pallavi Bahar

RISE OF CIVIL SOCIETY

The first impressions of the idea of civil society emerged in the late medieval and early modern Europe with groups of merchants and guildsmen that evolved fortunate to enjoy economic freedom in the feudal systems.(Bernhard, M. 1993:1) This formed the basis of Marx’s categorisation of civil society as a sphere of economic activity where individuals freely interacted with each other and were bound together through market relations. The autonomy of these self-seeking economic agents was usurped by the monarchical absolutism.

The 18h century was marked by the struggle to reassert their desire for autonomy and regain their space by challenging the monarchies. The struggle resulted in the creation of official space of monarchy and the state on one side and private or community space (political, social and religious) of social actors that comprised of associations, churches, parties, movements, unions, on the other side.

Civil society in medieval era (until the 18th century)

The Middle Age society was under the unquestionable authority of the Church. People were bonded in community living through their association with religious institutions and there was no space for those who wanted to remain out of these groups. Thus, the kind of association was not voluntary as the contrary involved exclusion. The people were managed and controlled by the rulers to their advantage through the use of religion. The possibilities of a liberal constitution were realised in the 19th Century with the teachings of catholic liberals, such as Lammenais and Montalambert in catholic countries and through civil wars in protestant countries.(170)1 Legal codes began to emerge, such as in Latin West, for various centres as canon law, Roman law, feudal law, commercial law, urban law and so on categorised as Medieval legal polycentricism. The ideals of “rule of law”, “freedom of individuals” and “limited government”, took formal shape only in the 17th and 18th Century with the works of John Locke and Montesquieu and under the influence of medieval political theory and Enlightenment. Realisation prevailed that in order to contain dissent (non payment of taxes or revolutions), the rulers were needed to comply with the law of the land. Thus, the Magna Carta laid principles for individual liberties and government by consent.

Civil society in the modern era (19th century):

1  Bauckeart. P.170.

The process of democratisation created a space for people’s participation in the affairs of the govt with the purpose of protecting their interests. The developments were more specific in the advanced industrial nations of the West where associations of labourers and workers emerged to secure their rights in the capitalist economies. Parallel to this, political and civil associations of various social groups started asserting their demands, for instance the American Civil Rights movement (1955-68) for full civil and political for all Americans including the non-whites.

The background of emergence of civil society on the Eastern European side was somewhat different due to the presence of authoritarian Soviet-imposed communist regime. The nature of civil society before 1989 in Eastern and Central Europe was more of opposition kind. The pre-1989 civil society of this region was more concerned with changing the political order itself rather than demanding space within the system.

Thus, it can be stressed that the nature of political system shapes the pattern of state-civil society engagement and that civil society can sustain comfortably in a democratic political order. This can be illustrated by studying the political systems of the Western and European world as under:

Civil society in Western and European societies

Although the popularity of the concept is attributed largely to the democratic wave in Eastern and Central Europe in the late 90s, the concept has been in practice in the 18th and 19th Century Western democracies such as US and UK where it successfully emerged as a social capital. The civil society of the 1960s varied across a number of groups – big and small- such as, the blacks, women, gays and lesbian, environmentalists, club groups, hippies and such others. Some of it also took shape of new social movements or direct political activism as a step beyond social networking. The appearance of civil society and its level of autonomy inthe Western and European societies saw a complex variation. This was due to the presence of different political systems in these countries. In order to understand conceptual variation, it is necessary to comparatively analyse the rise of civil society in the Western democracies (US and UK) on the one hand and the revival of the concept in post-1989 Eastern Europe and Latin American political transitions on the other. In the former, it was a consequence of democratic order while in the latter it was responsible for establishing a democratic order.

  Let us draw a brief sketch of Western and European civil society developments that symbolised the strengthening of democracy along with the rise and revival of the civil society.

Civil society in the Western democracies

United States: In the USA, ranging for the smallest of the undertaking to bigger projects, civil society comprises of a wide range of social associations such as Rotary Clubs, political parties, unions, teams, professional groups, religious and missionary groups,  groups  involved  in  running  hospitals,  prisons  and  schools  etc.  The  civil society works in close association with the press and is active with the formation of political associations (right of association in civil life). By political association it implied  the  constitutionally  guaranteed  right  to  assemble  peacefully  and  raise grievances. The only exception of protest turning violent has been that of the Civil Rights movement of the Blacks/African American in the 1950s-60s against the denial of basic rights, of access to public places (parks, hospitals, public travel modes etc.) and the exploitation and racial discrimination and segregation faced by the nonwhites. It was a fight for claiming inclusion and defending their civil and political rights of public accommodation, employment, housing, schooling and education and voting as against the supremacy of the whites supported by the state.  Today, the civil society movements mostly revolve around matters of social, economic, intellectual and moral significance rather than engage with raising challenges against the governing head. One of the best examples of this is the assembling of a massive population in contempt luxury demonstrating an abstention from consumption of spirituous liquors to curtail growing drunkenness in the society.

One of the prominent features of American democracy is the prevalence of a broad network of civic associations. The primary reason for this is the desire of individuals to form bigger unions to pursue their interests, rather than manage single-handedly, in a big democracy. Secondly, the membership of these associations is voluntary and with a feeling of mutual assistance as nobody can be forced to join the association.2 With the one exception of African-American Black movement, in such an open democratic system, the civil society associations tend to strengthen rather than weaken the state and people participate constructively enabling smooth functioning of the state.

Britain:  Britain is a country with a colonial legacy and holds a powerful position in global politics. It possesses a central place in the G8, G20, UN Security Council and influence over World Bank and IMF. Due to all this, the UK civil society has a deep relationship with the countries of even the developing world. The emergence of civil society movements in Britain dates back to the early 18th  Century when social and economic  turmoil  (such  as  unemployment,  class  conflicts  etc.)  began  with  the returning of the victorious soldiers after the Napoleonic wars (1815). It was only after the Second World War ended in 1945 and with the intensification of the process of industrialisation, that a systematic civil society formation began engaging with

2 De Tocqueville, Democracy, and the crystallization of American civil society p.11 http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/phall/07.%20Tocqueville.pdf matters of workers’ rights. By 1970s it extended to a variety of issues on women’s rights, civil rights, peace and environment. With the rise of globalisation coinciding with the process of urbanisation, growing technology, improved means of communication (print and electronic media, internet etc.), brought larger population in to social interaction towards addressing matters of mass education through university associations, freedom of speech through open society formations, concerns for environmental degradation by Sierra Club, Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund, Friends of the Earth and some more like Oxfam, Save the Children, Action Aid etc.

Thus, one can observe that UK civil society is divided in to two formats: international concerns and domestic issues. With industrialisation and modernisation, the nature and concerns of civil society have undergone a change. They tend to be more organised and more informed and of a more global nature addressing challenges at global level such as global environment, global poverty, international terrorism, genocide and so on.Italy: The model of Italy’s civil society was extensively surveyed by Robert Putnam.

He studied the performance civil society in the political system of North and South Italy. The Northern Italy followed a tradition of community participation and cooperation whereas hierarchy of the Norman rule and Catholic church prevailed in the Southern part of it. The fast economic growth of the North Italy in comparison to the Southern Italy, where there is a weaker civil society, characterised with slow socio-economic growth, brought out obvious conclusions related to the contribution of associative living. The South Italy state continued to dominate public space for instance, through the curtailment of the freedom of press. The role of civil society in this region has been significant to the extent that continuously engaged with challenging the undemocratic mechanisms leading to a very gradual dissolution of state domination. However, the recent economic crisis and alongside the transformation to an unelected government in 2011, have questioned the efficacy of the civil society organisations in preserving participatory democracy. Part of the reason for slow social and political transformation can be attributed to the presence of powerful lobbies, such as trade unions and labour organsisations, disassociating themselves with civil society organisations on account of the corporatist foundation of the Italian society. Moreover, the CSOs or community-based associations are largely male dominated substantially rely on volunteers. 3 The case of South Italy, in contradiction to what Putnam concluded, shows that a strong civil society is a consequence of a responsible government and the vice versa does not hold true for all societies.

After a short period of silence over the discourse on civil society, there was a revival in the interest for studying the new patterns of civil society’s engagement with the state, communist state.

Civil society in European communist regime : Revival (1990s)

Until the 1980s, the term civil society had little popularity. It came under extensive application with the activism of the 1980s in Eastern Europe inspired by the exogenous factor of Gorbachev’s reforms of ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika’ in Soviet Union. Some of the cases are discussed as follows:

Poland: Prior to the 1980s, the workers’ uprisings in Poland had suffered defeat twice (in 1970-71 and 1976) against the dominant communist regime. The air of pessimism of any possibility of regime change was challenged in the initial works of Smolar in

3  http://socs.civicus.org/CountryCivilSocietyProfiles/Italy.pdf the preface to Une Societe en Dissedence, Rupnik. Notable debates around the concept and establishment of civil society raised by Leszek Kolakowski’s Hope and Hopelessness (1971), Michnik’s The New Evolutionism and a series of lectures (under the title ‘Power and Civil Society’) given by Leszek Nowak who was a philosopher and ‘Solidarity’ activist, led to a reconstitution of the concept of civil society. Leszek Kolakowski, an exiled philosopher, visualised the rise of a civil society by observing resistance and bringing about a reform from ‘below’. The constitution of Worker’s Defence Party (KOR) and its joining in by the Polish intelligentsia, served instrumental in stimulating active civil society movement that opposed the repression of their strikes by ruling Soviet communist regime. In this way it saw itself in contest with the state (Party state) and led to a simultaneous proliferation of other social actors and social movements forcing the state to reconsider the controversial policies. The movement also saw the active involvement of the underground press. It marked a turning point in the unaccounted domination of the state even though civil society was not given a formal recognition by the Polish party-state. The space for opposition created by the KOR was thereafter occupied by subsequent mass movements that eventually gained legal recognition by the state, such as Solidarity, during the 1980s. Although, the state regained complete control with General Wojciech Jaruzelski’s declaration of a martial law in 1981 silencing the opposition forces for some time. However, due to the emergence of economic crisis and the reassertion of public space by non-state actors, the party-state had little choice but to negotiate with the Solidarity which became a contesting party in the partially free elections. The formation of Solidarity-led coalition led to the institutionalisation of parliamentary democracy in the region. This certainly was a case where-

     o   where civil society desired its autonomy from the state

     o   reformation of society was being sought with the establishment of pluralistic democratic structures from below

 o   where democracy has been emphatically been a consequence of civil society action Thus, Poland represents a case for a strong civil society structure.

However, post-1989 phase witnessed the decline of Solidarity of Poland which prior to 1989 was one of the powerful civil society organisation. Havel and Walesa (pre-1989 leaders) had themselves occupied offices after the regime transformation leaving behind leadership crisis. Secondly, there was no incentive and trust to unify against any common target (Putnam’s model of cooperation) (Brinton, A. 2007:5). Thus, the civil society in pre-1989 sense was presumed near submergence. However, in the wake of new developments with establishment of democratic institutions, the civil society came to acquire a different conceptualisation. Michael Bernhard associated the post-1989 civil society as a means of consolidating the democratic institutions. These acquired characteristics of loose networks of people that were grappling with the functionalities of the new set up. Social networking, at this stage, was weak and became an interactive site of sharing, discussing and forming opinion about the functioning of the system. To this, Gibson and Barnes (1998) added that this smoothly led to integration and politicization of these groups and hence, cognitive mobilization which, for instance, shaped voting behaviour implying at more participation in political processes and lesser involvement with other organisations as trade unions.(Brinton, A. 2007:12) This was something that happened in Poland where the once dominating Solidarity (union of Shipyard workers also a political organisation) lost its goal post-1989 and hence, failed to survive by the 1990s. The pattern shared resemblance with the Western European democracies during the 1970s analysed by R.Inglehart (1977).

However, before drawing a conclusion out of the Polish experience, there is a need to look at the developments in the other parts of communist Europe.

Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (openness) were the two reforms introduced by Gorbachev in Soviet Union in 1985. Glasnost implied loosening of state control over public life and increasing transparency in government institutions. Perestroika implied at eventual restructuring of Soviet’s political and economic system, for instance, strengthening the authority of the local governments as against the direct involvement of Communist party state.

Hungary: Prior to the emergence of public demonstrations in 1980s, the groundwork was  done  by  underground  publishing  (through  books  and  periodicals)  and  such organisations as Foundation for the Support of the Poor (SZETA), The Danube Circle (Duna Kor-ecological movement) and Dialogue (Dialogus – peace movements in Budapest that brought Western peace movements to a discussion forum on matters of peace and human rights). The combined efforts of the movements of the past and the League of Young Democrats (FIDESZ), various groups and unions along with the Budapest intelligentsia, resulted in the formation of the Hungarian Democratic Forum by September 1987. The Forum sought to establish a model “garden Hungary” (multi party system and mixed market economy with greater stress on cooperatives, small farms, local communities, workers’ councils) in line with what was called a “Third Wave” which was a middle path between capitalistic (Western liberal) and communist

(Soviet) ends. Once again, like Poland, the driving force for the movement was the inefficiency of the ruling head, Janos Kadar, to deal with economic stagnation and the distaste with the Soviet regime. Other than the efforts of the economic reformers such as Imre Pozsgay, Reszo Nyers and Miklos Nemeth, the activities of the Hungarian

Socialist Worker’s Party set the course for political transitions by 1988. All these developments coinciding with Gorbachev’s democratic reforms, provided space for establishing parliamentary democracy led by the coalition of conservative parties under the Democratic Forum defeating the Alliance of Free Democrats, the Socialist Party and others.

Similar  developments  marked  other  parts  of  Soviet  controlled  Europe  such  as  in  East Germany and Czechoslovakia leading to the eventual collapse of Soviet communism and setting the stage for initiating democratic processes. The next level of engagement was with that of consolidating the democratic processes. To this situation, doubts prevailed over the sustenance of civil society post-1989 as the economies of the newly independent states was going low and the civil societies lacked direction. This can be best summed up in the words  of Bronislaw Geremeck, a formers member of Solidaty (Poland) as: (Brinton,A. 2007:12)

[W]e believed that the civil society we were forming in the midst of our struggle against communism would prove a strong buttress upon which a future democratic order could lean after the collapse of authoritarian power…Our search for this kind of community, may be regarded as naive or irrational, but there is no denying that it was a highly effective force against totalitarianism. The problem is that when the common enemy of totalitarianism disappears, the reason for being of such a community begins o evaporate. It is then that a fundamental choice emerges : an open society or nationalism Thus,  the  Central-Eastern  Europe  displayed  two  forms  of  civil  society  summarised  by

Andrew Arato (2000). In one sense, it was “a set of societal movements, initiative, and forms of mobilization and in the other a framework of settled institutions (rights, association, publics)”.(Brinton, A. 2007:13) It muddled between resisting force against an authority (tsars, the Hapsburgs, the Austro-Hungarians, the Nazis,and the communists) leading to instability and a form of cognitive mobilization enabling participatory democratic processes that are believed to secure human rights and freedoms.

The post-1989 civil society, however, had larger role to play, especially in the fast globalising economies and growing inequalities.

Civil society in the era of Globalisation

With the upspring of global interconnectedness and the initiation of global processes the concept of nation-state came under serious challenge. Socio-political and economic concerns over environment, international wars, terrorism, economic crisis etc. surpassed state territorial control and moved beyond national boundaries. As a result, there was an expansion in the role and conceptualisation of civil society organisations engaging with global issues. The participation of third world civil society actors served instrumental in influencing matters of global concern for instance, civil society activism in Seattle, Prague, Genoa etc. The process took shape with the Washington Consensus in1989, which designed neoliberal economic and social policies towards macroeconomic stabilization, economic integration and spread of democratic governance. The process was imposed on developing countries through structural adjustment by international financing institutions as World Bank, International Monetary Fund. With this, the scope of civil society in the wake of global interconnectedness broadened further. The Global civil society emerged in the form of a movement or a set of associations operating in various countries. According to John Keane, Global civil society is an assemblage of groups operating across borders and beyond the reach of government. These groups have dealt with a broad range of issues at international level such as, child labour, human trafficking, environmental degradation, global poverty, global financial crisis, service delivery, anti-corruption, violence against women and so on. They have contested the concept of development as leading to widening gap between the rich and the poor economies and highlighted matters of global poverty with the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) professing for debt relief and larger aid to poor countries. They campaigned against the free trade policies for instance, the ‘Battle of Seattle in1999 and united struggle for protection of disparate groups of ecologists, women’s organisations, human rights groups etc. Richard Falk explains this democratic development as ‘globalisation from below’ that seeks to challenge the authoritarianism of powerful economies though formal bodies such as WTO and IMF.

Hence, global civil society can be seen as operating at three levels (Schipers, B. 1988:351):

a)      Checking economic globalisation

b)      Securing global citizenship

c)      Concerned with matters of global justice and peace

Thus, the civil society evolved as an agent for not only checking authoritarian and unjust tendencies but also engaging with the concept of good governance. World Bank referred to civil society as:

“a wide array of non-governmental and non-profit organisations that have a presence in public life, expressing the interests and values of their members or others, based on ethical, cultural, political, scientific, religious or philanthropic considerations. Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) therefore refer to a wide array of organisations: community groups, NGOs, labour unions, indigenous groups, charitable organisations, faith-based organisations, professional association and foundations.”

CONCLUSION

The history of emergence of civil society in different periods reveals a complex interplay of relations between the feudal society and economic man’s market space; between monarchical absolutism and the church; between the state and the community; between the public and the private and so on. What started as a small association comprising of individuals seeking to fulfil  their  economic  interests  in  the  pre-modern  societies,  ended  up  as  an  organised autonomous and mostly radical group of people with the purpose of challenging the totalitarian regime and striving to establish democratic system.

As discussed in the unit above, the significance of civil society revived with its active involvement in the peaceful revolutions that led to the collapse of the communist regime in Soviet Union and the end of domination of the repressive communist regimes of the Soviet in the Central and Eastern Europe – former German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovkia, and Hungary – paving way for the establishment of democratic system. In simple terms, civil society came to be associated with strengthening of democratic ideals. However, for the Western thinkers, civil society implied a set of informal associations such as trade unions, churches, political parties so on enabling democratic governance, whereas for the Central-Eastern Europe under communism, it was more of a powerful dissenting and mobilising force against the totalitarian state control which suffered change in its nature and course after the downfall of the communist regime in1989.

With the forces of globalisation taking over, new forms of civil associations started proliferating with global concerns. Today, civil society has evolved as a catch-all concept, representing any set of intermediary institutions or movement working towards the general interest of the public or its members. It has emerged as a third sector serving as an alternative to welfare state post-1989. Justin Rosenberg (1994) explained it as ‘the empire of civil society’ responsible for good governance and for striking a balance between the declining scope of state activity and rise in challenges due to global forces. What emerges in the final analysis is that:

Civil society is arguably about reconciling individual interest with the interest of the society. Civil society implies at individual liberty in a free market system.

Civil society as a challenge to authoritarian and undemocratic state control Civil society as a condition for participative democracy While acknowledging the crucial role played by civil society in the past in terms of transformation towards participative democracies and contesting for human freedom and rights, serious concerns have been raised with regard to the functioning of civil society. These are –

    a)      growing professionalization (accumulating money for acts of benevolence),

b)      growing corporatist patterns,

c)      creeping in of bureaucratic procedures,

d)     popular and stronger civil associations dominating over the concerns of smaller civil organisations etc.

However, these limitations though are alarming but cannot undermine the larger role played by the civil society at regional and global level. In the light of global interconnectedness, the need is to engage through larger alliances of civil societies from different parts of the world. Be it corruption or climate or rights of children, North-South (advanced industrial and fast industrialising worlds) cooperation of civil associations dealing with respective matters is imperative. They need to work through larger coalitions and solidarity towards agendas at wider scale to achieve desired outcomes and reduce imbalances at global level. The role of coalesced civil societies at regional, national and global level such as CIVICUS (World Alliance for Citizen Participation), Bond (UK body for NGOs working at international development), Arab Network on Development and such others, have a much larger responsibility and scope of activity in global welfare and reducing inequalities 4 hence, making the concept of global civil society more relevant.

The subsequent module shall discuss and compare the role of civil society in the developing world where civil society in modern sense is a more recent development. The colonial history

4 Kumi Naidoo “Global Civil Society: The role of UK civil society in a rapidly globalising world” http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk of most of these nations led to emergence of Social Movements that took up reforms and revolutions. The unit shall analyse the relationship of the civil societies in developing countries with that of the developed world.

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