The emergence of the idea of civil society: The artificial political order and natural social orders

Abstract

A reformulation of the relationship between the state and civil society as a relation between a willed political order and an unwilled natural order is the core of this account. The development of the idea of civil society from its pre‐modern identification with the ‘created political order’ (where no separation between state and civil society was apparent) to its modern construction as a ‘natural’ sphere separate from the state is traced. Then the two variants of this modern, ‘naturalistic’ idea of civil society: one economic (the subject of political economy) and the other moral (closely tied to notions of nation and community) are examined. On this basis, the question is posed: how can the democratic state ‘affect or purposefully intervene in civil society in general?’ This is followed by an examination of the different modes of intervention which the state adopts depending on whether civil society is conceived as a natural economic or moral order.