The power of Lithuanian civil society and its boundaries

Abstract

Civil society can be easily defined when it comes to an institutionalized part of it, i.e., by analyzing formal civil society organizations, finding out what they can do, what and how they do it, and what their binding interactions with government and business as well as their governing structure are. In other words, civil society can be defined by clear laws which determine its boundaries and the possibilities of their formation. Meanwhile, problems arise when trying to discuss informal civil society’s contribution to the formation of civil society’s boundaries. How do the groups of non-institutionalized civil society function? What structure is there between them and their relations with government and business? How do they contribute to the formation of boundaries? The aim of the article is to discuss the preconditions shaping the boundaries of civil society in the Lithuania of the recent past. It is believed that civil society is both a cooperative solidarity and a cooperation area (Tocqueville 1996, Putnam 2001, Seligman 2004), and that civil society becomes an arena of conflict by having opinions and ideas of pluralism and diversity (Walzer 1998, Keane 1998; Kubik 2006). During interaction, citizens have an opportunity not only to declare, but also to give meaning to specific targets and to form a number of expectations. Success or failures of civil society participants as well as legitimized or delegitimized goals help to define the boundaries of civil society. By studying the specific strategies and activities of citizens in accordance with the details of the context, we can get a clearer image of the boundaries of civil society.