Civil Society Contrubutions to Democratic Governance

Civil Society Organizations’ Contribution to Democratic Governance, 2013

The paper examines how the meaning of the phrase Civil Society has undergone changes in its definition and the reasons behind the changes.

2008

Simone Chambers Jeffrey Kopstein What is civil society? Today almost everyone agrees that civil society refers to uncoerced associational life distinct from the family and institutions of the state. Civil society is also often thought to be distinct from the economy. Where to draw the line, however, is a matter of some dispute. Some thinkers, particularly liberals and especially libertarians (Walzer 2002; Lomasky 2002) include the economy in civil society. Others, especially but not exclusively those on the left, exclude the economy (Cohen and Arato 1992; Keane 1998). Still others include economic relations only to the extent that they are folded into associational life, so for example, professional associations and trade unions might be included but GE or Microsoft are not (Post and Rosenblum 2002).

Encyclopedia of Social And Behavioral sciences

Historically, the idea of civil society takes two very different forms. In the first, civil society is 'political community' (societas ci ilis or koinonia politike) encompassing a state undifferentiated from society (Ellis 2000). Here, civil society is coterminous with the state: that is power relations ordered through law and institutions with the objective of ensuring social harmony. In the second, civil society is a selfregulating, self-governing body outside and often in opposition to the state, represented both as the nexus of societal associations expected to generate civility, social cohesion and morality, and as the site of reciprocal economic relations among individuals engaged in market exchange activity.

Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2014

The social sciences are bedeviled by terminological promiscuity. Terms and phrases are used at one time in a certain context and later borrowed and applied in different circumstances to somewhat different phenomena. Sometimes different groups of actors or researchers simultaneously use the same term with somewhat different meanings. Such is the use of the term civil society. In this 5th Anniversary of the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, it is timely to trace the evolution of the idea of civil society to its multiple guises in the present. The paper reviews the term’s 18th and 19th century roots, its recent resurrection and the opposing views of civil society, including views that question its applicability to non-western settings. It then discusses prospects for developing agreed approaches to the study of civil society. To guide our thinking the paper presents a brief overview of different approaches to defining civil society taken by some of the major ...

2007

Civil Society: Between Concepts and Empirical Grounds, 2020

Examining the historical and social trajectories involved in the continuous development of civil society, this volume reveals the contextual nature of the process. Through empirical studies focusing primarily on Denmark and cov ering the period from 1849 to the present day, it analyses the manner in which civil society has been practised and transformed over time. Presenting a new theoretical framework informed by a relational and processual perspective, the book sheds new light on familiar questions pertaining to civil society, the production of its boundaries and spaces of action, and the means by which these spaces can become causal factors. A fresh intervention in the study of a concept that has been central in defining ideas of solidarity and the common good, and to which researchers and politicians look for solutions to the great challenges of our time, Civil Society: Between Concepts and Empirical Grounds will appeal to scholars of sociology, politics, history and philosophy with interests in civil society.