Civil Society: Functions, Actors, and Challenges in a Democratic Context
Lecture 1: Civil Society
1. Definition and Functions of Civil Society
Civil society is an ordered society of free citizens whose freedoms are protected and basic needs are met. It is a non-profit sector animated by non-governmental organizations.
Functions of Civil Society:
- Political: Arena of political negotiation, means of interest representation, counterbalance to government, and generating participant civic culture
- Social: Building trust and social capital, crafting cooperation skills, managing social problems, and maintaining social cohesion
- Economic: Furthering economic interests, rent-seeking, third sector job creation, and civic engagement furthering economic growth
2. Actors of Civil Society
Actors of civil society are external to it and include:
- Protection of citizens: Protecting lives, freedom, and property against attacks and despotism by the state or other authorities
- Monitoring for accountability: Monitoring the activities of central powers, state apparatus, and government and holding them to account
- Advocacy and public communication: Articulating interests, especially of marginalized groups, and creating channels of communication to bring them to the public agenda
- Socialization: Contributing to the formation and practice of democratic attitudes among citizens like tolerance, mutual trust, and the ability to find compromise by democratic procedures
3. Legal System and Civil Development
The legal system affects civil development by providing opportunities and obstacles for forming associations, organizing events, and participating. It also determines the types of organizations legislation proposes, the requirements for organization/public event registration, and the rights and freedoms of participation and self-expression.
4. Characteristics of Civil Society
- Main entity: Collective entities (groups, organizations, communities) and individuals (connected through networks)
- Character of entities: Heterogeneous
- Coverage: Extended
- Scope: Local and global
- Type of community: Many strong internal ties
- Type of organization: High and lower
5. Trust and Social Capital
Trust: Interpersonal trust vs. general trust, social trust vs. trust in institutions, intra-group trust vs. intergroup trust
Social capital: Networks, connections, and relations to other people. Types: bonding ties, bridging ties, linking ties
6. Participant
Citizens are politically informed and interested, willing to participate.
7. Social Capital
Social capital can be accumulated by complying with cultural and social norms and values. Structural social capital can be accumulated by participation in different networks.
8. Trust Generated
Trust by Newton: Tested whether the level of trust is generated by life experience, participation in associations, participation in informal networks, and a more trusting personality.
Putnam: Trust is generated through cooperation on an individual level.
Paxton: Connected association membership induces trust more effectively.
9. Concept of Cultural Hegemony
Gramsci: Civil society as battlegrounds for cultural hegemony; political society vs. civil society.
Antonio Gramsci, cultural hegemony: The dominance of a particular set of ideas political actors will either have to conform with or tackle. Oppositional initiatives may aim to impose a counter-hegemony; pluralism can also be founded on a hegemony.
Lecture 6: Negotiation and Challenges of Civil Society
1. Negotiation of Civil Society
(Clark) States need to be self-confident, and CSOs should enforce that if they are not anti-government. (Scholte) ‘Democracy needs troublemakers.’ A healthy amount of dissent is needed, otherwise the civil society would lose its role as the watchdog and innovator. Danger of co-optation.
2. Contemporary Challenges to Civil Society
- The global financial crisis and attendant unemployment
- Widening socio-cultural schisms emanating from the so-called war on terror
- Climate change and the collapse of ecological systems
Lecture 2: Democracy
1. Characterization of Democracy as a Political Regime
Power: Converged: Sultanism, absolutist monarchy, feudalism, constitutional monarchy. Power divided: Democracy. Power dissolved: Anarchism, liberalism.
Freedoms: Freedom of association, freedom of expression, right to vote
2. Characteristics of a Democratic Political Process
- Basic principles: Is based on democratic politics competition that is brought about by conflictual interests
- Public will formation
- Broad spectrum participation
- Collective decisions
3. Characterization of Democratic Political Institutions
Democratic institutions grant the political system its legitimacy. Democratic rules of the game give legitimacy. Intermediary institutions develop a collective identity.
4. Importance of Political Community
- Coherence: Presumes that there are no fundamental linguistic, religious, ideological, or economical cleavages – that there is some capacity to sense yourselves as a unity
- Participation: The citizens of a democratic community are capable of modeling the surrounding social environment
5. Contemporary Developments of Democracy
- Securing citizen capacity to participate: Education, free press, basic level of welfare
- Multiplication of forms of participation
6. Characterization of Democracy
- Procedural: The right of an individual to elect people who define the public good
- Liberal democracy: Power holders accountable to the people, free, regular, and honest elections, all citizens have equal and full civic rights
- Substantive: Government is responsive to citizens’ opinions and wishes, citizens willing and able to participate in social and political decision making
- Radical: The possibility to take a position and also be in opposition to the ruling ideology
7. Deliberative Democracy
Deliberative democracy: A field of political inquiry that is concerned with improving collective decision-making.
- Direct: The opposite of the more common”representative democracy” under which the people elect representatives empowered to create laws and policies
- Participatory: Individual participation by citizens in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, especially directly rather than through elected representatives