State-civil Society Relations Research Articles

China’s Soft Power Diplomacy in Southeast Asia

The paper analyses the new geo-political and geo-economic strategic relationship between China and Southeast Asia. Is Chinese soft power encroachment into Southeast Asia creating greater stability, does it jeopardize US interests and what is the impact on the regime-types, economic restructuring, and the state-civil society relationship?
 
 The paper is divided into four parts. The first explores the historical and especially the contemporary changes in China’s geo-economic bilateral relationship with Southeast Asia through its bilateral trade, the role of FDI, the role of the ethnic Chinese Diaspora, and other political and economic factors. The second focuses on China’s role in the new emerging geo-political relations on a multilateral scale through new regional security, military and politico-economic institutions. The third part contains a brief exposure of shifting US bilateral and multilateral interests in the region - both geo-economic and geo-political; however the bulk of this section is devoted to a comparison of the differences and similarities of US and Chinese approaches in Southeast Asia. Finally some concluding remarks are offered.

Making Space for Civil Society: Institutional Reforms and Local Democracy in Brazil

This paper contributes to the growing body of research on participatory democracy and the literature on associational democracy by exploring the impact that institutional reforms have on local-level configurations of civil society. In the 1980s a wide range of participatory experiments were initiated in Brazil, most notably Participatory Budgeting in municipal governance. Municipios that adopted PB in principle devolve much or all of the decision making on new investments to decentralized participatory forums. In this paper we consider the results of an eight-city matched-pair analysis conducted in 2004, in which we selected municipios that adopted PB in 1997–2000, and matched them with a similar municipio that did not in the same period, drawing from the full sample of municipios over 20,000 inhabitants. Building on relational theories of civil society, we show that PB has clear but limited effects on civil society. It moves civil society practices from clientelism to associationalism, but does not contribute to the capacity of civil society to self-organize, at least in the time-frame considered. We also show that this democratizing effect on civil society practices and networks is conditioned by pre-existing state-civil society relations.

Paradoxes and asymmetries of transnational networks: A comparative case study of Mexico's community-based AIDS organizations

This article examines whether transnational networks reconfigure state–civil society relationships in ways that lead to civil society empowerment and increased organizational capacity to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Mexico. Using a comparative case study, I identify the types of transnational networks and exchanges that both help and hinder community-based HIV/AIDS organizations (CBOs) that provide AIDS prevention and treatment services in Tijuana and Mexico City. Data derive from over 50 formal interviews, organizational documents and archival records, and observation. I argue that the form and function of transnational networks is shaped by the geo-political context of local organizational fields and that, in turn, transnational networks provide innovative opportunities for civil society–state partnerships that favor some local organizations over others. Ultimately, I take apart the prevailing assumption that transnational networks are inherently good, and show how they can (re)produce inter-organizational stratification at the local level. The conclusions of this research are helpful to international health practitioners and social scientists seeking to understand how civil society's participation in transnational networks can both challenge and reproduce existing community-state power regimes and health inequities.

Gender and Civil Society: Time for Cross-Border Dialogue

This article sets out to provide a framework for thinking about the gendered nature of civil society. The first section looks at how civil society researchers, both past and present, have failed to provide any analysis of the gendered relations of civil society. This is not least because the family is posited as a residual boundary-marker for the purposes of clearing the analytic path for the investigation of statecivil society relations. Similarly, feminist researchers have not reworked civil society theories to explain the engendering of civil society, a key reason for this being that civil society is not an organizing category for analyzing gender relations. In the final section we propose a framework of analysis that uses a circuit of gender relations to trace the flow of gendered norms, values, and practices across the sites of the state, market, civil society, and the family.

Pharmaceuticalization: AIDS Treatment and Global Health Politics

This article examines the political economy of pharmaceuticals that lies behind global AIDS treatment initiatives, revealing the possibilities and inequalities that come with a magic bullet approach to health care. It tells how Brazil, against all odds, became the first developing country to universalize access to antiretroviral drugs—a breakthrough made possible by an unexpected alliance of activists, government reformers, development agencies, and the pharmaceutical industry. The article moves between a social analysis of the institutional practices shaping the Brazilian response to AIDS and the stories and lives of people affected by it. It draws from interviews with activists, policy makers, and corporate actors and from longitudinal ethnographic work among grassroots AIDS care services. Pharmaceutical innovations allow unlikely coalitions that both expose the inadequacies of reigning public health paradigms and act to reform, if to a limited extent, global values and mechanisms (of drug pricing and of types of medical and philanthropic interventions, for example). Treatment rollouts are matters of intense negotiation; their local realizations are shaped by contingency and uncertainty. Such realizations encode diverse economic and political interests, as well as the needs and desires of citizens. These therapeutic coalitions also expose the deficiencies of national and local infrastructures and consolidate novel state-civil society relations. A pharmaceutically-centered model of public health has emerged as a byproduct of AIDS treatment scale-up and the sustainability of the Brazilian AIDS policy has to be constantly renegotiated in light of global drug markets. A multitude of networks and variations in AIDS care have emerged on-the-ground, and the article explores why AIDS treatment has been so difficult to put into practice among poor Brazilians, who are often stigmatized as noncompliant or untreatable, becoming invisible to the public. Poor AIDS patients live in a state of flux, simultaneously acknowledging and disguising their condition while they participate in local economies of salvation. At both the macro and micro levels, we see a state of triage and a politics of survival crystallizing.

Canada's Approach to Good Governance in Bangladesh: Exploring the Dynamics of Social Change

ABSTRACT Exploration of the meaning and significance of Canada's governance framework. The distinctiveness of Canada's governance approach is identified by taking a closer look at Canada's governance activities in Bangladesh. Canada's governance framework, although it draws on the dominant liberal philosophical tradition that focuses on the promotion of both procedural democracy and the free market, recognizes the synergy among democracy promotion, market reform, and social development. Despite its innovation, Canada's governance framework does not ground the challenge of governance and human development in a comprehensive, more distinct theoretical base, leading to analytical and policy problems concerning its approach to state-civil society relations in particular.

Government by or over the People? The African National Congress's Conception of Democracy

The paper offers an interpretation of the African National Congress's conception of democracy. The interpretation is framed by three questions. Who are the people? How should the people govern? How should capital, capitalists and civil society be governed? Attention is given to the party's views on participatory democracy, its vanguardist claims and its views on aspects of state-capital and state-civil society relations. It is proposed that the party's tendency to discount diversity of interests, to persist with claims to superior understanding of complex issues and to preach hegemony as a virtue might signify government over the people rather than government by the people.

Colonialism and Civil Society in Africa: The Perspective of Ekeh’s Two Publics

Although it has gained wide currency in the analysis of African politics, civil society remains a “mysterious” concept in need of proper grounding and understanding as an integral part of African social formation. This paper argues that one of the widely acclaimed canonical works in African studies, Peter Ekeh’s theory of colonialism and the two publics in Africa provides one of the most original perspectives for locating and understanding the character of modern civil society as a product of colonialism. In particular, the theory provides an explanation for why primordial attachments have remained fundamental to the structuration of civil society and why state–civil society relations have largely been fractured, instrumentalist, and dialectical in the post-colonial period.

The Civil Society–State Relationship in Contemporary Discourse: A Complementary Account from Giddens' Perspective

The article attempts to offer a framework for understanding the interdependence between modern civil society and the democratic state in its complexity. The author seeks inspiration mainly from two very significant sources—in Toqueville's social theory and in Giddens' theory of reflexive modernity. In the first stage the author summarises basic arguments in empirical discussions on the civil society concept. In the second stage he offers the overview of a robust normative perspective of the concept and, in the third stage, he tries to outline the complex interpretative framework for an empirical analysis of state–civil society relations. The author follows the ambition of overcoming to a certain extent the crucial sociological paradox between the macro- and micro-sociological approaches and considering both the functional-structural perspective and the empirical point of view of the civil society concept.

Governance Innovation and the Citizen: The Janus Face of Governance-beyond-the-State

This paper focuses on the fifth dimension of social innovation-i.e. political governance. Although largely neglected in the mainstream 'innovation' literature, innovative governance arrangements are increasingly recognised as potentially significant terrains for fostering inclusive development processes. International organisations like the EU and the World Bank, as well as leading grass-roots movements, have pioneered new and more participatory governance arrangements as a pathway towards greater inclusiveness. Indeed, over the past two decades or so, a range of new and often innovative institutional arrangements has emerged, at a variety of geographical scales. These new institutional 'fixes' have begun to challenge traditional state-centred forms of policy-making and have generated new forms of governance-beyond-the-state. Drawing on Foucault's notion of governmentality, the paper argues that the emerging innovative horizontal and networked arrangements of governance-beyond-the-state are decidedly Janus-faced. While enabling new forms of participation and articulating the state-civil society relationships in potentially democratising ways, there is also a flip side to the process. To the extent that new governance arrangements rearticulate the state-civil society relationship, they also redefine and reposition the meaning of (political) citizenship and, consequently, the nature of democracy itself. The first part of the paper outlines the contours of governance-beyond-the-state. The second part addresses the thorny issues of the state-civil society relationship in the context of the emergence of the new governmentality associated with governance-beyond-the-state. The third part teases out the contradictory way in which new arrangements of governance have created new institutions and empowered new actors, while disempowering others. It is argued that this shift from 'government' to 'governance' is associated with the consolidation of new technologies of government, on the one hand, and with profound restructuring of the parameters of political democracy on the other, leading to a substantial democratic deficit. The paper concludes by suggesting that socially innovative arrangements of governance-beyond-the-state are fundamentally Janus-faced, particularly under conditions in which the democratic character of the political sphere is increasingly eroded by the encroaching imposition of market forces that set the 'rules of the game'.

State-Civil Society Relations in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Adam Habib State-Civil Society Relations in PostApartheid South Africa Thebasictwinexpectations ofgovernmentare thatNGOswillfirstly, continue to act as monitors of the public good and safeguard the interests ofthe disadvantaged sections of society. Thisperformance of this social watch role requires both transparency and account­ ability on the part ofNGOs. Thegovernment’s second expectation is that NGOs will assist in expanding access to social and economic services that createjobs and eradicatepoverty among thepoorest of thepoor. This requires cost effective and sustainable service delivery — ZOLA SKWEYIYA IN BARNARD AND TERREBLANCHE (2001:17). Formany ofthe activists... workingin differentspaces and having different strategies and tactics, there was a binding thread. There was unmitigated opposition to the economicpolicies adopted by the ANC Activistsspokeofhowtheright-wingeconomicpolicies lead to widespread and escalating unemployment, with concomitant water and electricity cut-offs, and evictions evenfrom the “toilets in the veld” provided by the government in the place of houses. More importantly, there was general agreement that this was not just a question ofshort-termpainfor long-termgain. TheANChad become a party ofneo-liberalism. The strategy to win theANC to a left project was a dead end. TheANC had to be challenged and a movement built to render its policies unworkable. It seems increas­ ingly unlikely that open confrontation with the repressive power of thepostapartheid state cannotbe avoided — a s h w in d e s a i (2002:147) social research Vol 72 : No 3 : Fall 2005 671 TWO QUOTATIONS, AND TWO VERY DIFFERENT VISIONS OF POSTAPARTHEID state-civil society relations.' The articulators of these visions have as their goal the empowerment of, and delivery of services to, the poor. Both individuals are located in different institutional settings. The first is a cabinet minister responsible for the Department of Social Development. The second is a civil society activist, one among many leaders in the new and emerging civic struggles that are challenging local governments in their imposition of a cost-recovery paradigm to the provision of social services. Which vision is appropriate for the conditions of postapartheid South Africa? Both quotations reflect at least one element of our postapartheid reality. But the absolute and categoric character of their visions makes them inappropriate models for a contemporary state-civil society rela­ tionship. Implicitly, these visions imagine a homogenous civil society. They project a single set of relations for the whole of civil society. Is civil society, however, not plural by its very nature? And, should not this plurality infuse our understandings of state-civil society relations in contemporary South Africa? This article takes as its departure point a definition of civil society that celebrates its plurality. It recognizes that the set ofinstitutions within this entity will reflect diverse and even contradictory political and social agendas. As a result state-civil society relations will reflect this plurality. Some relationships between civil society actors and state institutions will be adversarial and conflictual, while others will be more collaborative and collegiate. This state of affairs should not be bemoaned. Instead, it should be celebrated since it represents the political maturing of South African society. Under apartheid, the adversarial-collaborative divide largely took a racial form with the bulk of “white civil society” establishing collegiate relations with the state, and the majority of “black civil society” adopting a conflictual mode of engagement. This racial divide began to blur in the transition period as significant sections of “white civil society” began to distance themselves from the apartheid regime. In the contemporary era, the racial divide has all but disappeared, with adversarial and collegiate relations extending across the entire ambit of civil society. 672 social research Elsewhere I have defined civil society as “the organized expression ofvarious interests and values operating in the triangular space between the family, state, and the market” (Habib and Kotze, 2003: 3). This defi­ nition conceptualizes civil society as an entity distinct from both the market and the state. Of course, traditional Hegelian definitions of the term include the market. I am, however, persuaded byJean Cohen’s and AndrewArato’s comprehensive and defining work on the subject, which makes a coherent case for why the market should be excluded from the definition of civil society. For Cohen and Arato, the actors of what they call...

Sovereignty & democratic exclusion in the new South Africa

In this essay I will outline the contours of the attempt by the ANC government to reorder state-civil society relations. This will be done by delineating the form of civil society participation that the government has promulgated in the field of justice enforcement in order to ‘tame’ or direct the uncontrolled aspects and forces of self-organisation emanating from the struggle against apartheid known as ‘people’s power’. The article will argue that the establishment of institutions like the Community Policing Forums (CPF) were created to harbour and give direction to these forces rests on and allows for a particular type of democratic citizenship or normative ethical being, while excluding other types of political-ethical being. The essay illustrates how past ideas about friends and enemies of the ANC are used as the interpretive lens to decode opposition to the CPF.

World Bank, Governance Reforms and Democracy in Argentina

The World Bank's endorsement in the 1990s of institutional reforms as a constitutive dimension of economic development led to the adoption of a governance agenda. The paper analyses the role the Bank exercised in Argentina and explains its influence in the adoption of a new state model, of new state civil society relations and on particular key components of democracy. This paper argues that while the Bank has helped to set up an agenda of reform regarding governance problems, the push for particular policies and practices has also produced partial and contradictory results on the consolidation of democracy.

Negotiating Marriage: Questions of Morality and Legitimacy in the Ghanaian Pentecostal Diaspora

AbstractAmong the many immigrant groups that have settled in the Netherlands, the recently arrived migrants from Ghana have been perceived by the Dutch state as especially problematic. Explicit measures have been taken to investigate marriages of Ghanaians, as these appeared to be an avenue by which many acquired access to the Dutch welfare state. While the Dutch government tightened its immigration policies, many Ghanaian Pentecostal churches were emerging in the Ghanaian immigrant communities. An important function of these churches is to officiate over marriages; marriages that are perceived as lawful and righteous in the eyes of the migrant community but nonetheless do not have any legal basis as far as the Dutch state is concerned. This contribution explores why the Ghanaian community attributes great moral significance to these marriages that are taking place within their Pentecostal churches. It investigates the changing meaning of the functions of Pentecostal churches in Ghana and in the Netherlands by distinguishing civil morality from civic responsibility. It seeks to explore how, in both contexts, legitimacy is created as well as contested in the face of prevailing state-civil society relations. Through this exploration, it will become clear why, in both situations, Pentecostalism is unlikely to develop into a civic religion in the full sense of the term.

Hong Kong Regime Transformation at the Crossroads: From the Politics–Administration and Social Capital Perspectives

After Hong Kong returned to China, it experienced both subtle and significant changes in various arenas including its bureaucratic system, its politics, and in its civil society. These changes gradually lead to regime transformation. This article examines regime transformation in Hong Kong from two theoretical perspectives: politics–administration relations and state–civil society relations. Two cases which constitute salient issues today, the Right of Abode and the Falun Gong cases, were selected to illustrate the direction of Hong Kong regime transformation from both theoretical perspectives. The two cases suggest a possibility that Hong Kong might be gradually coming under more political/party influence from the Beijing government. They also suggest the institutionalization of a more centralized political system in Hong Kong, while it continues to maintain a relatively high level of social capital development with significant civil group activities.

The Social Function of Carlos Fuentes: A Critical Intellectual or in the ‘Shadow of the State’?

This article seeks to raise meaningful questions about the role, or wider social function, of the intellectual within state–civil society relations in Latin America characterised by conditions of socio–economic modernisation. It does so by pursuing such questions through a detailed examination of the social function of Carlos Fuentes as an intellectual in Mexico. Through a focus on the social function of Carlos Fuentes, it is possible to distinguish the role intellectual activity can play in the construction and contestation of hegemony in Mexico. Most crucially, the article prompts consideration of the social basis of hegemony and the agency of intellectuals organically tied to particular social forces functioning through state–civil society relations in the struggle over hegemony. Put differently, it is possible to grant due regard to the mixture of critical opposition and accommodation that has often confronted the intellectual within Latin America.

Civic spaces, globalisation and Pacific Asia cities

Eight types of civic spaces are identified as a way of assessing trends in the vitality of civil society. In Pacific Asia, with its traditions of strong 'developmental' states, the emergence of civic spaces has largely taken place through resistance and insurgence. However, ongoing political reforms lead to new possibilities for the routine provision of civic spaces that are open to all and are protected against state abuse by the rule of law. At the same time, the impacts of globalisation on civic spaces are emerging, as cities compete for international investment and as urban spaces become fragmented by global linkages and privatisation for commercial interests. Agendas for civic space policies thus need to pay attention not only to progressive reforms in state–civil society relations, but also to ways in which relations between localities and globalisation are transforming the contents and uses of urban spaces.

Beyond the Paradoxical Conception of `Civil Society without Citizenship'

Liberal and marxist theories of civil society contain a conceptual paradox of `civil society without citizenship'. This article shows how the paradox about civil society comes about through an under-theorization of the multivalent character of citizenship and rights, which in turn reflects a rather impoverished understanding of culture, discourse and symbolization. The discussion starts with two related questions about civil society: (1) where is the locus of citizenship in classical liberal and marxist theories of civil society; and (2) what implication does the conventional state-civil society distinction have for the notion of citizenship as a category of status and agency? It further distinguishes among three different theses of state-civil society relations in the two different theoretical traditions. The article will conclude by outlining an alternative theoretical strategy whereby to go beyond the conceptual impasse and to meet the challenge of globalization.

Civil society and the state: Turkey after the earthquake.

On 17 August 1999 Turkey was hit by a massive earthquake. Over 17,000 lives were lost and there was extensive damage to Turkey's heartland. This paper examines how various public and private institutions, including state and civil society institutions such as NGOs and the media responded to the needs of earthquake survivors. It documents the extensive involvement of NGOs in the relief efforts immediately after the disaster and examines the impact of such participation on state-civil society relations in the country. The data show that state response to the disaster went through several phases from a period of ineptitude to effective management. The paper credits the media and the NGOs for acting as advocates for survivors and forcing changes at the state level. The paper argues that an ideal response system, which fully addresses the needs of victims, can only be based on state-civil society relations that are both collaborative and adversarial.

Democratisation and State-Civil Society Relations in Chile, 1983-2000: From Effervescence to Deactivation

Iberoamericana – Revista Nórdica de Estudios de Latinoamérica y el Caribe, es una revista académica arbitrada, interdisciplinaria y bilingüe. Es administrada por el Instituto de Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de Estocolmo en colaboración con otras universidades nórdicas con el objetivo de presentar investigación de alta calidad sobre América Latina.La revista publica artículos originales enfocados en temas relacionados con las ciencias sociales y humanidades. Investigadores de todo el mundo son bienvenidos a enviar sus manuscritos en inglés o español.