Re-emergence Of Civil Society Research Articles

Religious Materialities, Aesthetics, and Protests in Urban Poland: Religious Icons and the Re-Emergence of Civil Society

In this paper, we reflect on the creativity and social change nexus in urban Poland by focusing on the recent religion-linked materialities in Kraków. Such materialities, or religious icons, are directly involved with transformations and the emergence of a new type of Polish civil society and activism. Therefore, we elaborate on the notion of religious icons involved in the recent re-emergence of the protest culture in Poland. We reframe them in terms of powerful socio-religious mediators that open the way to re-imagining and claiming new (re)configurations between social and religious fields in Poland. We acknowledge the role played by affective, creative, and semantic modalities of aesthetics vis-à-vis social change and suggest rethinking the link between creativity and religion, which we consider emblematic of current epistemologies of post-secular urbanities in Poland. We claim that the religion-creativity nexus should be included in the analytical framework examining contemporary developments of Polish civil society in general and social movements in particular.

The emergence and re-emergence of civil society: a brief history of civil society in Europe, from the Magna Carta to the Eurozone crisis

Since 2008, Europe has been mired in a series of complex and interconnected economic, financial, fiscal, and political crises, prompting citizens across Europe to erupt onto the streets to protest against cuts to pensions and public services, taxation increases, and government corruption. The current crises have resulted in profound challenges for many civil society organisations, yet they also arguably present an opportunity for many groups and have prompted the re-emergence of a more vibrant and politically engaged civil society in some European countries, as compared to the large contract delivery NGOs which have dominated recent years, sometimes to the detriment of small civil society organisations which are the backbone of European civil society However, in order to fully understand these current and emerging trends, we should cast our gaze further back. This article aims to contextualise recent trends through providing a brief history of the emergence and development of civil society in Europe, draw...

Tom Zé and the performance of citizenship in Brazil

AbstractThis paper examines the recent historical trajectory of the idea of citizenship in Brazil through the perspective of Tom Zé, a composer and musician noted for his juxtaposition of avant-garde poetics and popular music. My study begins with his participation in the watershed Tropicália movement of the 1960s, focusing on his critique of consumer society and its implications for popular citizenship. In the early 1970s, the figure of the bourgeois citizen, or senhor cidadão, appears in his work as a caustic critique of those who benefited most from the expansion of capitalism during the period of authoritarian rule. With the re-emergence of civil society and redemocratisation in the 1980s, Tom Zé's work reveals a more affirmative notion of citizenship premised on the discourse of self-represenation among working-class subjects. Finally, this paper discusses Tom Zé's most recent work and its contribution to insurgent forms of citizenship in contemporary Brazil involving historically marginalised and impoverished urban communities within the context of neo-liberal globalisation.

Creating a democratic civil society in eastern Germany: the case of the citizen movements and Alliance 90

The Reemergence of Civil Society as a Concept of Democratic Politics Civil Society, Public Spheres, and Democratic Deliberation Political Dissidence and Civil Society in Pre-1989 East Germany Institutionalizing Civil Society during the GDR's Transition to Democracy Alliance 90: Citizen Movement or Political Party? Institutionalizing Citizen Movement Politics: Democratic Possibilities and Practical Limitations The Democratic Legacy of the Citizen Movements and Possibilities for a Politics of Civil Society

PEACEFUL CHANGE AND THE RISE OF SUDAN'S DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT

Negotiations to end Sudan's devastating civil war have repeatedly faltered, but among other developments, the re-emergence of civil society in both the north and south provides greater impetus for peace, as well as greater prospects for democracy and respect for human rights. Particularly important, but thus far relatively unnoticed, is the rise of a southern-led civil society movement in the north. Although Sudan's complex history and demographics provide an explanation for much of the conflict, in fact the conflict is essentially political, while it is this very complexity that could provide a basis for the resolution of the conflict. Some intriguing parallels with South Africa's recent experience underscore the role of civil society, and point to some options for the future.

Power, Peasants and Political Development: Reconsidering State Construction in Africa

Recent writing on political development in Africa has shown a marked tendency to de-privilege the state. We might discern three broad, related, reasons for this trend. The first is the deepening political crisis involving what Crawford Young has described as “shrinkage in the competence, credibility and probity of the state.” The second is the growing dissatisfaction among scholars with the narrow analytical focus of state-centered scholarship on state structures and elites. The third is the re-emergence of civil society as an analytical concept (sparked by political crises in Eastern Europe) and a renewed emphasis on market institutions as appropriate arbiters of social provision.Many scholars, despairing of the political and economic decline of African countries and seeking more compelling explanations, have moved the state out of the explanatory spotlight. They have stressed the fragmentation of politics, processes of economic disengagement from the realm of state control, and expanding areas of social life that fall outside of the ambit of state authority. For some, the relationship between the state and civil society has offered a more appealing focus for analysis.2 Society-centered research has even suggested that the state is not (or is no longer) the main organising principle of politics in Africa.

The Reemergence of Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

The Reemergence of Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

Rau, Zbigniew, ed. The Reemergence of Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

Rau, Zbigniew, ed. The Reemergence of Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

Constructing Capitalism: The Reemergence of Civil Society and Liberal Economy in the Post-Communist World.

Part 1 Regional political economy: mind and body - ideology and economy in the collapse of communism, Leszek Kolakowski two-tiered Stalinism - self-destruction of the system, Valerie Bunce political economy of the East European Soviet trade - rethinking the past and searching for the future, Josef C.Brada. Part 2 Reconstruction of markets: property rights perspective on changes in Eastern European and Soviet economies, K.Poznanski ownership forms and co-ordination mechanisms - reformed socialism and normative implications, Janos Kornai divestment of state capital in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Jozef van Brabant. Part 3 Dilemmas of democratization - the reconstruction of citizenship - reverse implication in Eastern Europe, George Kolankiewicz from social idea to real world - clash between new possibilities and old habits, Mira Marody main paradoxes of the democratic change in Eastern Europe, Jadwiga Staniszkis epilogue - markets and states in the transformation of East European and Soviet societies, K. Poznanski.

The Reemergence of Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Edited by Zbigniew Rau. Boulder: Westview, 1991. 181p. $39.95.

The Reemergence of Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Edited by Zbigniew Rau. Boulder: Westview, 1991. 181p. $39.95.

The Reemergence of Civil Society in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Ed. Zbigniew Rau. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991. 181 pp. $39.95, hard bound.

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

Human Nature, Social Engineering, and The Reemergence of Civil Society

There is not much disagreement that the recent spectacular establishment of parliamentary democracies and market economies in Eastern Europe and the even more breathtaking events in most Soviet republics – which should culminate in the reemergence of the Baltic nations as independent states – may be convincingly conceived of as the triumph of civil society over the Marxist-Leninist system. Both the collapse of the Marxist-Leninist system and the reemergence of civil society may be discussed in terms of theories which deal with the relationship between human nature and sociopolitical systems.