State-civil Society Relations Research Articles

Participation and Passive Revolution: The Reproduction of Neoliberal Water Governance Mechanisms in Durban, South Africa

: This article demonstrates that Gramsci's concept of passive revolution can be utilised to help unearth some of the contradictions of participatory development within neoliberal governance systems in the global South. I argue that some approaches to “participation” within neoliberal governance systems can, in part, be understood as moments within a protracted process of passive revolution. The argument is traced through eThekwini municipality's Community Participation Programme and the related extension of Free Basic Water (FBW). This article contributes to existing scholarship by demonstrating how a Gramscian analysis is indispensable to understanding the way in which state–civil society relations are conceived in participatory development strategies and the implications this might have for radical social change. I argue that a Gramscian approach compels us to reconsider current understandings of state–civil society relations so that we might overcome the impasse of passive revolution and move towards a more progressive form of politics.

Social memory and state–civil society relations in the Philippines: Forgetting and remembering the Jabidah ‘massacre'

This article seeks to explain the recent resurgence in national memories of the Jabidah Massacre – the killing of dozens of Muslim recruits undergoing clandestine training, allegedly in preparation for the infiltration and destabilization of Sabah. We argue that the ways in which the memories of this incident have been forgotten, remembered and appropriated by different groups in the past four decades were determined by the shifting political needs and interests of elite politicians, Moro nationalists and civil society groups.

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.

Development for a postneoliberal era? Sumak kawsay, living well and the limits to decolonisation in Ecuador

Latin American development is being rapidly transformed, with popularly elected governments embarking on reversals of neoliberalism informed by autochthonous notions of human wellbeing. Through a detailed examination of the origins and application of one development model, this article examines the constraints on and limits to postneoliberal development in terms of state-civil society relations and as a form of postcolonial governmentality. Interpreting Ecuadorian sumak kawsay (living well in English) in relation to embedded political cultures, specific opportunity structures, and the dynamic between contentious and electoral politics highlights the extent of room for manoeuvre in rethinking development. As a form of governmentality and pastoral power, Ecuadorian ‘postneoliberalism’ incorporates a constitutional commitment to social rights, collective citizens and the rights of nature. The paper also reveals the difficulty of making a definitive break from neoliberalism, which remains pervasive in practice, conceptualisations and state formations. Moreover, although various forms of anti-colonial ‘border thinking’ were proposed by social movement’s contentious politics, the paper argues that sumak kawsay works to sustain postcolonial conditions of development.

English

This paper is trying to examine the state-civil society relation and also argue from the theory of deliberative democracy in explaining the roles of civil society in Malaysia. Carolyn Hendriks sees deliberative, from two fundamental approaches; there are micro deliberative which concentrates on defining the procedural conditions of a structured deliberative forum and macro deliberative which are more concerned with the messy, unstructured deliberation which takes place in the public sphere. With the combination of civil society and deliberative democracy, this paper will open up the discussion on the state-civil society relations in Malaysia. It manages to trace that Malaysian civil society movements, in engaging and managing the relation with the state, have employed both deliberative methods of deliberative democracy. In fact, Malaysian civil society has gone a step further by joining the opposition party and contesting in the election for power due to hostile relation between the state and civil society. However, the reality is that there are too many considerations that need to be contemplated by the state and civil society in their relations, especially when it involves national security and race issues.

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.

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.

Promoting Civil Society Across the Borders of the EU Neighbourhood: Debates, Constraints and Opportunities

One of the aims of this article it to clarify the nature of the debate over ‘civil society’ and its relationship to the state. It begins by suggesting that the EU's borderland provides a context in which deep-rooted ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ understandings of state and civil society meet and overlap. The second section outlines the geo-political reshaping of the ‘Neighbourhood’. It concentrates on the influence of non-EU actors, notably Russia, complementing the EU-focused literature on the subject. The third section elaborates the consensus in the literature on the weakness of civil society in the EU ‘Neighbourhood’. This is followed by a discussion of ‘Western’ debates over the role and significance of civil society. This discussion suggests that the ‘export’ of a Western model eastwards begs many questions about which particular model is to be promoted. It concludes that the precise characteristics of state-civil society relationship remains central to the prospects for enhancing civil society co-operation.

PERAN MASYARAKAT SIPIL DALAM PROSES DEMOKRATISASI

The growth of civil society in Indonesia gives rise to some imperative issues to resolve. This is the indispensable ground why the study is carried out, i.e. the contribution of the role of civil society on the process of democratization undergone todate. The objectives of this study are among others to identify problems faced by civil society organisation in instigating its role with regard to the aspects of enabling environment (external) and capacity of organisation (internal) as well as the nature enhancement; to acquire profile of civil society augmentation in the context of its role contribution as significant actor democracy advancement, and to propose policy recommendation concerned with contribution and enhancement of the role of civil society in the process of consolidating democracy in Indonesia. This study is a qualitative review. The methods used are among others depth interview, focused group discussion, public consultation through seminar, and literature study to identify CSOs that will be the target of this study. The study concludes that (1) state-civil society relationship is enormously influenced by local context (social and political culture), nature of civil society organisation (human resources and management, financial sources, movement model, networking), and local and national political economy dynamic; (2) civil society organisation has an important potential on the process of consolidating democracy in Indonesia; (3) the role of society in generating the growth of civil society organisation has been somewhat noteworthy.

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, political stability, and state power in Central Asia: cooperation and contestation

This article develops a concept of civil society in Central Asia distinct from that which emerged from the East European communist societies of the late 1980s. Kazakhstan presents a case study of a civil society that conceptually can be located between the vibrant civil society of the Baltic democracies and the civil society of the strongly repressive environments of Belarus or Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan's authoritarian structures and cultural traditions make it difficult to develop strong independent civic organizations – cooperation tends to mark state-civil society relations more than contestation, which shaped much of Eastern Europe's experience. Even in a context of relative affluence where civil society organizations are allowed some space to engage in critical activities, contestation tends to be minimized. This is only partially related to state suppression and cooptation; a political culture that views democratic processes as potentially destabilizing is also a significant factor. Kazakhstan represents a distinct Central Asian model of civil society, comparable to Russia but qualitatively different from that found in either Eastern or Western Europe, where civil society is less willing to confront the state, more cooperative with the authoritarian system, and wary of the potential for civic activism to degenerate into instability. Differentiating types of civil society is important because a key component of Western democracy assistance programmes has been providing assistance to build and strengthen civil societies. By refining our understanding of distinct civil society patterns in Central Asia, we can enhance our knowledge of political processes in this critical region, and we may improve the effectiveness of democracy assistance programmes. The study is grounded in field research, interviews, civil society workshops, survey research, and government documents.

Japan's State-Civil Society Relations at Multiple Levels of Analysis

Japan's State-Civil Society Relations at Multiple Levels of Analysis

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.

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.

Philippine NGO Websites, Usage Patterns, and Implications to State-Civil Society Relations

The opportunities that the Internet brings for civil society groups, from information dissemination to deliberation and from service delivery to mobilization have led scholars to anticipate it to be a critical resource for communication and collaboration with its stakeholders. However, such studies on the breadth and level of use remain limited, mostly on transnational or developed country NGOs, or focused on a few exceptional cases. This exploratory study aims to contribute to the still scant body of empirical evidences through an analysis of the websites of 193 non-government organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines. This study investigates the website features of Philippine. NGOs: from serving as a platform for information dissemination and advocacy, creating an arena for discussion and dialogue, strengthening organizational capacity, online service-delivery, to mobilizing action. Attention is made on differentiating Internet use by accredited and non-accredited NGOs and draws important implications to state-civil society relations in the information age. The study is critical as it provides a much-needed empirical/baseline research for supporting internet use/efficacy theory building, particularly with the civil society as the user-context. It finds that website usage patterns tend towards information provision with some promise for organizational strengthening and that there are functional differences in the way accredited and non-accredited NGOs use websites. Broader issues of civil society and the Internet, including NGO resource issues, accreditation and legitimacy in the information society, and emerging patterns of power are brought into the discussion.

Attitudes toward Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Muslim World

22 *Scott Spehr, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Political Science Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research, KIMEP e-mail spehr@kimep.kz 1. Bahgat Korany, Rex Brynen and Paul Noble, “Conclusion: Liberalization, Democratization, and Arab Experiences”, in, Baghat Korany, Rex Brynen and Paul Noble eds., Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World, vol. 2: Comparative Experiences (Boulder,London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1998): 267. Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXIII, No. 3, Spring 2010 Attitudes toward Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Muslim World Scott Spehr* Introduction Hopes were high that the Middle East and the Maghreb would be swept up in the latest wave of democratization that began thirty years ago. But by the latter half of the 1990s any optimism in this regard seemed misplaced. The democratic winds of change – the practice of competitive elections, the adherence to the rule of law, and the protection and promotion of explicit rights and liberties - seem to have largely bypassed many of these countries. Nevertheless, as in much of the rest of the world, the discourse on democracy has become widespread throughout the region, at all levels. Even patently non-democratic regimes claim that they represent the will of the people, while regularly misusing the procedures of democratic governance to stabilize their rule and to appear legitimate in the eyes of the world. This is as true of the Arab world as anywhere else. As Korany et al have observed about the region:” The emphasis placed by regimes on the ‘democratic’ character of their regimes confirms that the very language of dimuqratiyya has come to acquire considerable symbolic value.”1 But symbolism is not substance. Political systems in the Arab world have 23 2. See Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner and Daniel Brumberg eds. Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press 2003); Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, J.A.Cheibub, and Fernando Limogi, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World 1950-1990, (New York: Cambridge University Press 2000); Larry Diamond, Juan Linz and Seymour M. Lipset Democracy and Developing Countries: Persistence, Failure and Change (Boulder: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1999); Elie Kedourie, Democracy and Arab Political Culture (London: Frank Cass, 1994); Howard Handelman and Mark Tessler eds. Democratization and It’s Limits: Lessons from Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.(Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1999); Mark Tessler, “Do Islamic Orientations Influence Attitudes toward Democracy in the Arab World: Evidence from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Algeria,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 2 (Spring 2003): 229-49; and Mark Tessler “Islam and Democracy in the Middle East: The Impact of Religious Orientations on Attitudes Toward Democracy in Four Arab Countries,” Comparative Politics 34 (April 2002): 337-54; Mariana Ottaway and Thomas Carothers, “Middle East Democracy,” Foreign Policy, November-December 2004; Emmanuel Sivan, “Arabs and Democracy: Illusions of Change,” Journal of Democracy 11 (July 2000): 69-83; Najir Fardani, ed., The Arab Human Development Report 2005, (New York: UNDP). 3. See Rex Brynen, Baghat Korany, and Paul Noble, “Introduction: Theoretical Perspectives on Arab Liberalization and Democratization” in Rex Brynen, Baghat Korany and Paul Noble eds., Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World, vol. 1: Theoretical Perspectives (Boulder, London: Lynn Reinner Publishers, 1995). 4. Tin Niblock and Emma Murphy eds., Economic and Political Liberalization in the Middle East (London: British Academic Press, 1993); and Bhagat Korany, “Arab Democratization: A Poor Cousin?” Political Science and Politics 27, 3 (September 1994), 511-513. 5. See Bhagat Korany and Paul Noble, “Introduction” and “Conclusion” in Bhagat Korany, Rex Brynen, and Paul Noble, Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World, vol. 2: Comparative Experiences (Boulder, London: Lynn Reinner Publishers, 1998). undergone little change. The reasons for this are diverse.2 One line of explanation focuses on the level of equilibrium or disequilibrium in statecivil society relations. Thus, weak political parties and oppositional social groups could contribute to state dominance over society, undermining the process of democratization.3 From a political economy perspective it has been argued that exogenous revenues or rentierism allows regimes to buy off dissent through various social welfare programs paid for by the state and thereby regimes are able...

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.

State-Civil Society Relationship: The Case of the State and HakiElimu in Tanzania

In pursuit of Education for All (EFA), the government of Tanzania, in collaboration with donors, embarked on an ambitious Primary Education Development Plan (PEDP) that aimed at amongst others, rapid expansion of school enrolment. This had far ranging implications on the capacity of the education sector, both human and material resources, to cope with the growing numbers. A research by HakiElimu, a renown civil society organization engaged largely with education, exposed fundamental problems in the education sector following the expansion, much to the detest of the government. What followed was a bitter confrontation between the state and HakiElimu. This paper presents the developments of that confrontation, and analyses it with a view as to what happens when a CSO tries to lock horns with the state. The main lesson is that a CSO takes a great risk by trying to criticize the state’s efforts, and therefore it needs to re-assure itself of its ability to survive government’s pressure when it comes.

Civil Society as the Non-Elected Fourth Branch of Governance: State-Civil Society Relations in South African Service Delivery and the Three Roads of Governance

Civil society is a nebulous notion in philosophy, sociology and political science literature. As a result, it is difficult to assess its interaction with the state in general and to examine the possible roads of governance in a republic in particular. In this paper, we first revisit the concept of civil society to dispel this ambiguity. Second, we examine the relationship between civil society as the non-elected fourth branch of governance and the roads of governance. Finally, we examine the State's performance in governance in the case of food security and suggest the possible road of governance South Africa is likely to follow given the state of its civil society in the post-apartheid era.