The boundaries of civil society in a stateless nation. Governing nineteenth-century Edinburgh

Abstract

Graeme Morton, The boundaries of civil society in a stateless nation. Goveming nineteenth-century Edinburgh, p. 763-778. The concept of civil society has corne to dominate explanations of the historical construction of national identity in Scotland. The concept is also found increasingly in the literature of the urban historian. The purpose of this article is to unearth the boundaries which structure this concept. Edinburgh, the capital city of a nation without a state of its own, offers a valuable test of the coherence of civil society in the nineteenth century. Two approaches are offered here. The first asks how inclusive are the organisations and associations which comprise civil society. Do the rivalries which exist between associations enhance or undermine the strength and depth of civil society? The second approach examines the technical boundaries of the city. It analyses whether the urban/rural boundary marks the beginning and end of civil society. The outcome is an exploration of the empirical basis of a most influential concept.