Civil Society Relations Research Articles

Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization of “Civil Society” in Africa: State–Civil Society Relations in Ghana from 1982–2000

Despite civil society’s ambiguity, many scholars tend to focus on the economic reasons for the apparent conflict between state and civil society, with little or no attention to the conceptual differences that may be influencing the behavior of public and civil society actors. Using Ghana under J. J. Rawlings as a backdrop, this article argues that state–civil society relations are partly shaped by the divergent conceptualizations of “civil society” held by state and civil society actors. It suggests that the issue is not just the African state’s limited understanding of the multiple roles that civil society organizations can legitimately play in the polity; it is also civil society’s lack of recognition and acknowledgment of the legitimate functions of the African state.

The politics of mobilization for security in South African townships

The politics of mobilization for security in South African townships

Community Media and the Rearticulation of State-Civil Society Relations in Venezuela

This article critically examines the role of community media movements in articulating state–civil society relations in the establishment of a popular radical democracy in Venezuela. We employ institutional analysis and a frame-alignment approach to understand how community and alternative media (CAM) advocates negotiated issues of identity and autonomy from the state in the creation of the National System of Popular, Alternative, and Community Communication between 2008 and 2009. The analysis revealed that CAM groups reasserted unmet demands for access to the spectrum and autonomy from state agencies, while amplifying the government's “anti-imperialist conflict frame” as a rationale for increased popular participation in the media. We discuss the democratic potential of these policies and the populist public sphere in Venezuela.

EU democracy promotion in Turkey: funding NGOs, funding conflict?

Funding nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) to encourage democratisation features prominently on the EU's policy agenda for accession countries. The rationale for EU funding to NGOs communicated through policy documents suggests such interests are largely due to the salience of liberal democratic rhetoric, premised on supporting liberal individualism and respect for human rights. By looking at the situation in Turkey, this paper argues that the success of such an approach is contingent on how well it corresponds with the reality of civil society relations in the recipients' context. In cases where such a correlation between policy and context does not exist, donor funding may lead to further divisions between groups in civil society, and even fuel the differences that exist between various groups.

An Analysis of State–Civil Society Relations in Finland: A Case of Joensuu

Theoretical researches have argued that state–civil society relations differ from one country to another because of different economic, political, and socio-cultural factors. This article aims to show civil society’s role in the Finnish welfare state and how the state and the civil society affect each other in Joensuu, a 72,167 populated Finnish city. Joensuu case is analyzed from the theoretical perspectives of Esping-Andersen (The three worlds of welfare capitalism, 1990), Young (Nonprofit Volunt Sector Q 29:149–172, 2000), and Schofer and Fourcade-Gourinchas (Am Sociol Rev 66: 806–828, 2001) by taking into account interviews with 13 members of voluntary organizations in the city. In the light of the field work, the argument is based on the negative impact of welfare system’s transformation process on nongovernmental organizations in Joensuu, Finland.

Childhood and Disability in Brazil: A History of Blindness and Silencing

This article is a continuation of research involving inclusive educational policies, conceptions and transmission concerning childhood and the disabled child in Brazilian physical education academic production. The aim is to understand the history of childhood in Brazil, from the colonial period to the Republic and the role of government and civil society in relation to problems in the lives of children, specifically those with disabilities, in the history of Brazilian educational policies. Bibliographic and documentary research methods were used and the conclusion was reached that the history of childhood in Brazil has been marked by abandonment and disrespect. From total anonymity in the first centuries to our days, when the child is recognized as a citizen with rights and obligations, the idea of institutional and social care for children with disabilities has been given mere lip service.

Event tourism governance and the public sphere

Political and sociological shifts have profoundly affected state, business and civil society relationships. This paper explores governance as a new form of public–private policymaking wherein stakeholders deliberate on and take action to achieve common goals. It examines how different public spheres facilitate (or not) sustainability debates, and specifically facilitate (or not) discussion about sustainable tourism. Using a case study of the 2009 Australian World Rally Championship, the paper explores the development of the public sphere. Tuckman's group development process – forming, storming, norming and performing – is employed as a lens to understand these processes. Key findings include: the way the public sphere is constituted has a major influence on the dialogue that takes place; citizens are currently reactive, rather than strategic and creative in their engagement; the “third way” project, seeking to empower communities, requires government commitment; there is a blurring of public–private interests; control of knowledge and expertise within the public sphere is largely controlled by corporate and state interests; fast action to secure events prevents debate and engagement; and a discursive public sphere is essential for transparent and accountable governance, and sustainable development, and to move beyond government by powerful corporate interests and extra-local rule systems.

A Functional Anarchy

During the Bush administration, the United States ratified a free trade agreement with five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. Ratification in Costa Rica was considerably delayed because of widespread popular opposition that led to a referendum in October 2007. The strategies used to gain a victory for the Yes campaign were opposed by the Patriotic Movement for No, a diverse network of neighborhood-based patriotic committees, trade unions, agricultural organizations, academics, women’s organizations, environmental movements, and the Church. Resistance to the agreement in Costa Rica is helping to dereify free trade doctrines and producing proliferating forms of political association that articulate credible and appealing alternatives to neoliberalism. The referendum unleashed a struggle for hegemony in Costa Rica that has important implications for state—civil society relations and the rescaling of state power.

Rethinking the Nordic welfare state through a neo-Hegelian theory of state and civil society

The premise of this paper is that ‘civil society’ is a concept that is powerful precisely because it is always normatively and ideologically loaded and never politically innocent. The paper begins by laying bare the extent to which the central notions that inform the promotion of the ‘non-profit sector’ as well as the critique of the (welfare) state are ideologically embedded in an Anglo-American theoretical narrative, one which links civil society to unselfish, altruistic and communitarian virtues. Using Sweden's particular historical experience as an empirical case, the paper then puts forth an alternative, ‘neo-Hegelian’ theory of state–civil society relations, according to which civil society is first and foremost conceived of as the arena in which individuals and groups seek to advance particular political and private interests, to satisfy needs and desires and to realize hopes and ambitions. It pictures state–civil society as a dynamic, interactive and productive process, rather than as a counterproductive zero-sum game. The paper ends by making a few additional theoretical reflections based on the analysis of the Swedish case, fleshing out this account of the neo-Hegelian theory of state–civil society relations.

Civil Society and the ‘Neighbourhood’ — Europeanization through Cross‐Border Cooperation?

This collaborative study pursues a dual objective. On the one hand, it focuses on the actual and potential roles of civil society in developing new forms of political, economic and socio‐cultural cooperation within the emerging ‘European Neighbourhood’. On the other hand, through this investigation of civil society networks it contributes to the ‘Europeanization’ debate with regard to the influence of the EU in civil society development in neighbouring states and on cross‐border civil society interaction within the neighbourhood context. This will include a comparative analysis of perceptions of the EU and its role in empowering civil society as related by civil society actors. The rationale for this collection of essays is thus defined by the transformation of political relationships between the 27‐member European Union and countries in its immediate vicinity. Based on research funded by the European Union’s 6th Framework Programme, the authors will perform this investigation by analysing cooperation processes, the multi‐level contexts within which they operate and, perhaps most importantly, the role of the EU in conditioning civil society relationships within the Neighbourhood.

Reflections on the evolving landscape of social enterprise in North America

Social enterprises, at least in the United States, internalize a hybrid mix of public, private and civil society activity, each and all of which are constituent and confluent. Is social enterprise re-embedding the market in civil society through its engagement to generate social wealth, or is it contributing to a process of dis-embedding, as a market-based approach to address societal issues imposes a strategy of commercialization? Simply asking this question demonstrates how difficult it is to capture this phenomenon in a homogeneous “new welfare mix” paradigm that realigns state, market and civil society relations. Not only do national contexts matter, but degrees of marketization or commercialization do as well. This article provides a broad overview of social enterprise in the North American context. In examining the literature on social enterprise, one navigates through a lexicon of numerous terms and definitions.

Political Mobilisation, the Poor and Democratisation in Neo-liberal India

Globalisation has had far-reaching implications for the dynamics of liberal democracy and governance in India. With the opening of the Indian economy in the 1990s, global market forces and private sector organisations have played an increasingly significant role in the political life of the nation. Given this background, several central questions are addressed. How has globalisation affected the way that state and civil society relations in India are constituted? In particular, what are its political implications for the poor who had previously relied on the services provided by the post-colonial state that carried out significant welfare-orientated functions? The paper argues that the contradictions of globalisation have transformed the dependent identity of the poor and marginalised toward a greater propensity for collective mobilisation. While the longer-term outcomes of such mobilisation remains unclear, the hegemonic position of entrenched elites is more clearly being challenged by the emergence of new agendas of inclusion, welfare rights and social justice appearing under conditions of neo-liberal globalisation.

GLOBAL CHALLENGES TO LEGAL REGULATION OF STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY RELATIONSHIP

The objective of this paper is to present the role of law in structuring and regulating the state- civil society relationship and the extent of the challenge globalization poses to this triangular relationship. While there are a number of different conceptualizations and formulations of the state- civil society relationship, it is only through a legal framework that this relationship is formally defined. The article begins by providing a conceptual framework for the state and civil society distinction and then introduces the evolution of law into a legal system as the precondition for differentiating the civil society as a non-state actor. A comparative evaluation of civil society development in totalitarian, liberal and welfare state systems provides an analytical backdrop for the contemporary transformations generated by globalization and how that affects legal systems, states and civil societies within the realm of the nation-state as well as in the larger context of a global political economic structure

Antipolitics and Counterpolitics in Nepal’s Civil Society: The Case of Nepal’s Citizens’ Movement

This article considers the relationship of civil society to the domain of the political from the actors’ perspectives. It explores the attempt by a citizens’ movement (CMDP) in Nepal to construct new political realities in the context of the autocratic regime of king Gyanendra and then during the democratic transition. This was, paradoxically, to be achieved through the construction of an apolitical space. Theoretically, this production of apoliticality by civil society actors shows that civil society is not only implicated in the expansion of what is understood as ‘political’ but also in setting its boundaries. The broader aims of the article are to contribute to the ethnography of civil society and to add to current understandings of the relationship of actually existing civil societies to the political domain. Practically, it argues that debates over whether civil society is or is not political in the Nepal case and normative positions within development circles that it should not be political are misconceived since civil society is a site for the production of both politicality and apoliticality.

Contextualizing the meaning of public management reforms: a comparison of the Netherlands and South Korea

Previous literature has demonstrated that the apparent global convergence between public management reforms is misleading because there are major differences in how a global paradigm of reform is implemented. This is not only a question of implementation, but also of interpretation. Even when reforms are similar with respect to the administrative measures that are implemented, they can have significantly different political and cultural meanings, depending on the broader state—society relations within which they are embedded. A cross-national analysis of reforms must therefore take sufficient account of the historical development of the position of the state and of state—civil society relations. To demonstrate the point, the article compares public management reforms in the Netherlands and South Korea.Points for practitionersAlthough cross-national comparison of public management reforms can be a source of inspiration, it is crucial to keep in mind that similar reforms can have different meanings depending on the national context and thus can result in different policies, programmes, and institutions. For practitioners in public management and administration, this implies that, before importing ‘good’ practices from elsewhere, it is imperative to assess how those practices were part of broader historical developments in the country of origin and to what extent the conditions within the country of destination are different.

Civil Society after Democracy: The Evolution of Civic Activism in South Africa and Korea

The phase of democratic consolidation can significantly impact the motives, dynamics and objectives of civil society. Its internal roles, dynamics and power balances are significantly altered by the advent of democracy, due to shifting resources, political opportunities and a general reframing of goals and objectives. By adopting a definition of civil society as an ‘arena’ (which highlights the continuously evolving composition and leadership of civil society) and borrowing a number of theoretical dimensions from social movement theory (which underline the importance of resource mobilization, political opportunities and conceptual framing processes), the article shows that the advent of democracy has posed a number of challenges to civil society organizations in Korea and South Africa. Moreover, the consolidation of democracy has inevitably changed the nature of government–civil society relations. While in South Africa institutional politics reasserted itself in the first years of democracy, thereby sidelining organizations and movements concerned with public accountability and good governance (which have only recently resurfaced through the action of new social movements), in Korea corruption and lack of transparency immediately marred the dawn of democracy, providing civic movements with a fertile terrain to galvanize civic mobilizations vis-à-vis the lack of responsiveness of the political class.

Re‐shaping Civil Society in Morocco: Boundary Setting, Integration and Consolidation

Morocco’s political opening in the 1990s brought to local civil society a new dimension of internationalization, diversification and professionalism. Furthermore, international pressure coupled with financial support for civil society organizations has promoted an agenda focused on political and civic rights (e.g. human rights, women’s rights, freedom of the press and association). This paper explores three domains of civil society endeavour — women’s rights, human rights and socio‐economic rights — which have triggered different responses from the Moroccan state and the international community. As is argued in the paper, through ‘boundary setting’, the state has had to re‐regulate state–civil society relations by defining political arenas assigned to state and civil society actors. More specifically, I will investigate cooperation mechanisms and opportunity structures for the development of civil society activism that have emerged as a result of the EU’s policies and within the context of the Neighbourhood Policy. I use these three empirical examples to illustrate the complex dynamics of state–civil society relationships in Morocco and contradictions of EU policies that seek to promote civil society in that country.

Civil Society or Democracy? A Dutch Paradox

Since the 1990s, research has been carried out worldwide into the relationship between ‘civil society’ (an organised, self-aware society) and the formation of democracy. Dutch historians have to date shown little interest in this field of research, although the case of the Netherlands is an interesting one, both historically and in terms of current affairs. This article makes a case for the relevance of Dutch history to the debate on civil society in relation to three points. Firstly, where civil society is a phenomenon of the eighteenth and above all the nineteenth centuries, the society of the Republic demonstrates that a corporatist order can show characteristics of a civil society. Secondly, the factor of religion can be an important element in the promotion of social commitment. Thirdly, Dutch history flags up a paradox: it seems that a highly developed, civil society can rather limit than promote the need for political democracy and the recognition of an independent political sphere. This article is part of the special issue 'The International Relevance of Dutch History'.

Analyzing empowerment: An ongoing process of building state–civil society relations – The case of Walnut Way in Milwaukee

Arguments regarding citizen involvement and empowerment within neoliberal urban politics are ample in geographic literature. Existing discussions often define and evaluate empowerment as either some social, political, or economic end-product of a specific event. Such singular conceptualization is problematic. First, different kinds of social, political, and economic changes can simultaneously empower/disempower communities in contradictory ways. In addition, the view of empowerment as an end-product of a present event obscures a more nuanced understanding of empowerment as an ongoing process of state–civil society relation-building. An in-depth assessment of such a process is only possible with reference to the past and the potential future occurrences. Elwood’s (2002) multi-dimensional conceptualization of empowerment recognizes the limitations of a singular definition of empowerment. However, it falls short of operationalizing empowerment as a temporal process with a historically and geographically contingent past, dynamic present, and future in the making. Therefore, in this paper I expand on Elwood’s framework to show how a process-based view as opposed to a narrow end-product-based or event-based one can provide a deeper understanding of state–civil society interaction and community empowerment. This paper analyzes the interaction between the City of Milwaukee, the residents of a predominantly black inner-city neighborhood, the Walnut Way, and their community organization, the Walnut Way Conservation Corp. within a land-use dispute related to the development of a park space into a housing project. Using data collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews, archival research, and participant observation, this paper emphasizes that despite methodological limitations of collecting long-term data, community empowerment can and should be studied as a process with reference to the past, present, and potential future state–civil society interactions.

Institutionalizing Intersectionality in the European Union?

European Union (EU) policies are a good case to explore with regard to the extent to which intersectionality has been institutionalized, given that the EU has broadened its equality agenda from the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty onwards and can be expected to impact on the trajectories of institutionalization in member states. Situated in an analysis of the EU legal framework and machinery on gender and anti-discrimination, this article explores the interface between European institutions and civil society in relation to the treatment of intersectionality by analysing alliances and competition between groups representing different inequalities and the positioning of institutions in the debate. It also investigates whether the EU's current institutionalization may encompass positive developments in the treatment of previously neglected inequalities and thus promote more inclusive equality policies, or may create barriers between and exclude different inequalities. The article concludes that the EU legal framework is merely juxtaposing inequalities rather than intersecting them, and is not giving equal importance to the different inequalities. Debates on the creation of recent institutions, such as the European Institute for Gender Equality and the Fundamental Rights Agency, show that tensions exist between different positions and groups. Dynamics of interaction within European civil society reveal evidence of both contestations and alliances.