State-civil Society Relations Research Articles

Taking the long view: 20 years of Muungano wa Wanavijiji, the Kenyan federation of slum dwellers

In the mid-1990s, the grassroots movement Muungano wa Wanavijiji emerged from Nairobi’s many slums aiming to resist forced evictions by the Kenyan government. Muungano confronted a nexus of politicians, government administrators and elites all seeking to acquire city land occupied by informal settlements – and in doing so challenged antipathetic attitudes to informality. Joining global advocacy, Muungano has pushed locally for recognition of slums as human settlements, later designing models for upgrading living conditions. Throughout this evolution, the Kenyan state has been the single most prominent precipitant for the strategies Muungano has employed. This paper describes the correlations between a social movement and the state, set within broader changes in state–civil society relations in Kenya. In doing so it seeks to bring out the complexity of a relationship that has varied from conflict to contestation, partnership to collaboration, and separate but parallel efforts to address common issues.

Anti-politics, the early Marx and Gramsci’s ‘integral state’

This article traces a line of theorisation regarding the state-civil society relationship, from Marx’s early writings to Gramsci’s conception of the integral state. The article argues that Marx developed, through his critique of Hegel, a valuable understanding of the state-civil society connection that emphasised the antagonism between them in capitalist societies. Alternatively, Gramsci’s conception of the ‘integral state’ posits an interconnection and dialectical unity of the state and civil society, where the latter is integrated under the leadership of the former. The article argues that while Marx and Gramsci’s positions are, at first, seemingly incongruous ideas – as to the ‘separation’ in Marx and ‘integration’ in Gramsci – this tension can be bridged when the integral state is understood as being always necessarily unstable. The article argues that this framework can help us understand the contemporary breakdown of political rule in the phenomenon known as ‘anti-politics’.

Building the urban commons in Singapore: the cemetery, red-light district and public housing estates as sites of contestation

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the state of informal social activism initiated by Singaporean youth via the creation of ground-up initiatives. Having witnessed state-civil society relations, where calibrated liberalisation, co-option and coercive measures are used as strategies of state control, these informal collectives seek new modalities and methodologies in their efforts to build the urban commons. By following three of such collectives, this paper seeks to explore the overlapping cultural and social realms they operate in, as well as the new modalities and methodologies they bring, such as participatory art and design. They negotiate constraints from both the state and market through (1) strategic positioning of legal statuses and (2) the formation of a network society, building social capital and a new vocabulary for future efforts in self-organisation.

Devastating earthquakes facilitating civil societies in developing countries: across-national analysis

ABSTRACTDeveloping countries, which often have emerging or fledgling civil societies, are vulnerable to disasters, and especially devastating earthquakes. The long-term influence of devastating earthquakes on civil societies in developing countries is a critical research topic while receives relatively little attention. From a comprehensive literature review, this study identified four key areas of the civil society: civic participation, voluntary organizations, social capital, and democratic governance, and then examined four devastating earthquakes in India, Iran, Pakistan and China in the first decade of the twenty-first century as case studies, to identify the effects these earthquakes had on these four areas. It was found that from a long-term perspective, while the earthquakes strengthened the civil society, they had beneficial but limited effects. We argue that by promoting local community participation, facilitating extensive non-government organization (NGO) cooperation, and streamlining state-civil society relationships, an enabling environment can be developed to further sustain the advances made by a civil society after a disaster.

Fostering institutionalisation? The impact of the EU accession process on state–civil society relations in Serbia

In the framework of its enlargement policy, the EU has placed considerable emphasis on supporting civil society organisations (CSOs) both as domestic drivers of change and as a means to foster new, more participatory modes of governance. Our research examines the impact of the EU accession process on state–civil society relations in the Western Balkans and assesses the extent to which new forms of interaction are becoming institutionalised. Comparing minority rights and environmental regulation in Serbia, we find that enlargement negotiations lead to increased dialogue and more formalised interactions between government and CSOs. However, the institutionalisation of state–CSO cooperation remains partial and is hampered by a lack of political will. Whereas civil servants are generally open to civil society input, political officials frequently resort to facade cooperation in response to external pressures. We conclude that the emerging governance model is nothing like the ‘double weakness’ or agency capture found in earlier studies, but instead consists of strong hierarchy and a narrow group of highly professional CSOs engaged at the margins.

Seeing like a city through the Singapore City Gallery

Urban planning galleries are interpretive spaces that assert the state’s vision for the city. Ostensibly public showcases of a city’s past, present, and future, state administrations use these sites for specific purposes. On the one hand, planning galleries are designed to convince the public, tourists, and investors that their cities are aspiring towards a greater and more optimistic future. On the other hand, these galleries imply to visitors that the state holds extensive spatial knowledge about their territory—in essence, planning galleries are a material and discursive assertion of state sovereignty. Such assertions are a reaction to shifts in the state–civil society relationship, and represent the state’s desire to have citizens appreciate the challenges of urban management—to see like the city. This paper evaluates the Singapore City Gallery (SCG)—a performative space maintained by the Urban Redevelopment Authority that reasserts the state’s vision for Singapore. I argue that sites like the SCG are significant for understanding how cities are being made through negotiation between the state and diverse publics.

Civil society challenged: towards an enabling policy environment

Abstract The roles of non-governmental or civil society organizations have become more complex, especially in the context of changing relationships with nation states and the international community. In many instances, state-civil society relations have worsened, leading experts to speak of a “shrinking space” for civil society nationally as well as internationally. The author proposes to initiate a process for the establishment of an independent high-level commission of eminent persons (i) to examine the changing policy environment for civil society organizations in many countries as well as internationally, (ii) to review the reasons behind the shrinking space civil society encounters in some parts of the world and its steady development in others, and (iii) to make concrete proposals for how the state and the international system on the one hand and civil society on the other hand can relate in productive ways in national and multilateral contexts.

Approaches to civil society in authoritarian states: The case of China

AbstractBoth civil society in China and research on Chinese civil society have developed profoundly over the last three decades. Research on Chinese civil society can be classified into two categories: a structure‐oriented approach and an agency‐oriented approach. Both approaches acknowledge the state's dominant position in restricting the political space for civil society engagement, but they differ in their understanding of state–civil society relations. A key concern within the structure‐oriented approach is to analyze how the autonomy of civil society organizations is shaped by their structural position vis‐à‐vis the state. Agency‐oriented scholars, on the other hand, reject the analytical focus on structural autonomy. Instead, they build on a more nuanced understanding of the authoritarian yet nonmonolithic context in China and analyze how civil society organizations develop specific strategies to be able to operate within their restricted political space. In particular, agency‐oriented scholars have analyzed two ways in which organizations exercise agency: by strategically developing formal or informal ties with state actors and by bringing their engagement into the public sphere to raise awareness and express their voice. What could be further developed in the agency‐oriented approach is, however, a deeper understanding of the political dimensions of civil society agency.

Politics of Conviviality? State–Civil Society Relations Within the Context of Counter-Terrorism in Nigeria

There are emergent interests on the dynamics of counter-terrorism measures (CTMs) at global, regional and national levels, particularly with respect to how CTMs intersect with and shape state–civil society relations. Using a descriptive research design, this study examines how the implementation of CTMs influences the dynamics of state–civil society relations in Nigeria. The stratified random sampling was used to select 205 programme officers of civil society organizations (CSOs), while purposive sampling was used to select 29 executive directors of CSOs for in-depth interviews. The descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyse the data. The findings show that the capacity of CSOs to contribute to CTM is shaped by the politics that places CSOs in the service of the government. Their positioning helps establish an environment of conviviality in which CSOs advance the interest of the state in the context of counter-terrorism, and in turn, the state engages and endorses CSOs. The paper argues that CTMs are increasingly impinging on the operations of CSOs in Nigeria, thus constraining the autonomous space that defines CSOs that lie at the intersection of state and society.

Understanding Zimbabwe: from liberation to authoritarianism and beyond

This book is a very welcome addition to the historiography of Zimbabwe's recent past. Sara Dorman's careful arguments, backed up by meticulous research, embrace the complexity and contradictions of modern-day Zimbabwe. She offers a nuanced discussion of the country's particular path to decolonization since independence in 1980, deftly dodging a simplistic demonization of Robert Mugabe or excessive focus on the violent ruptures and gradual socio-economic reconstitution around the Fast Track Land Reform Programme. Writing in a clear and accessible style, she underlines the importance of particularity and unique circumstance in individual African countries' paths to independence and their post-colonial trajectory. Dorman highlights the importance of state–civil society relations and sternly condemns facile accounts of ethnic politics. In her view, understanding African politics requires an appreciation of the ‘cultural and normative politics of citizenship, voice and nation-building’. ‘Nationalism’ is grounded in a ‘re-conceptualization of power relations’. This, then, explains how individual nations emerged, state institutions developed and societies negotiated a new terrain post-independence. In her framework, which emphasizes the dynamics of change and continuity, the material drivers of accumulation (‘spoil politics’) and power politics are not ignored—far from it—but Dorman stresses that any analysis of these practices needs to be set in this broader discursive, institutional and social context. Also, as Dorman underlines, elites need to be understood in the context of the social groups from which they emerged, and with which they continue to interact. This is a sophisticated framework of analysis, which acknowledges both Zimbabwean exceptionalism and the similarities of transformative change across the continent.

Civil society, political society and politics of disorder in Cambodia

This paper questions under what conditions the social foundation necessary for the construction and sustenance of civil society are present in post-colonial social formations, and the extent to which there has been a need to develop concessionary politics to maintain a project of rule. It utilizes Partha Chatterjee's usage of Gramsci's political society to understand how Cambodia's ILO-led garment factory monitoring regime secures legitimacy not by the participation of worker citizens in the matters of the state, but by claiming to provide for their well being. I argue that the hegemonic project is fraught by virtue of the fact that consent-seeking forms of regulation, which aim to prevent strikes through trade union membership and tripartitism, have reached their limit and spilled over and into a disaggregated, messier terrain of struggles akin to political society. To develop the argument that workers' politics cannot be expressed in state-civil society relations, I present case studies of two forms of protest. The first form is distinguished by mass faintings, which I characterize as ‘visceral protest’ against the terms of workers' insertion into industrial capitalism. The second is large-scale, worker-led strikes that signal a ‘politics of social disorder’ is emerging, characterized by extra-legal, disruptive, and sometimes violent protest. The paper calls for a re-politicization of labor, and research attuned to workers' ambitions that cannot be reduced to a stable location or sphere within state-civil society relations.

Inventorying Armagh: Max Lock, civil society, and the diffusion of planning ideas into Northern Ireland in the 1960s

ABSTRACTThe cathedral city of Armagh is one of the most historically and architecturally significant on the island of Ireland. This article explores the preparation of an inventory of Armagh’s architectural heritage by the London architect-planner Max Lock in 1964, commissioned by the Northern Ireland Committee of the National Trust. The inventory represents one aspect of the initial response of civil society to impending change in the built environment in the mid-1960s and formed part of efforts to ensure parity with Great Britain in land-use planning legislation. The inventory facilitates a wider discussion on state-civil society relations in Northern Ireland, the values and ideas guiding change within historic settlements, and the place promotional advantage that the local council sought to derive from Armagh’s history and heritage. Utilizing Ward’s typology of diffusion, it is argued that Northern Ireland represents an unusual ‘within-UK’ example of the transference of planning ideas and practices, with its historical experience of devolution offering valuable contemporary insights into the increasingly diffuse and fragmented governance space within the UK.

Determinants of Post‐flood Social and Institutional Trust Among Disaster Victims

The 2010 Pakistan floods affected a tenth of the population of that nation and one‐fifth of its land, killing more than 1,700 people. Many observers have wondered the degree to which mass emergencies affect how residents see their decision‐makers. We use original survey data from 450 Pakistan residents to evaluate the degree to which social and institutional trust were correlated with flood damage. Controlling for gender, educational level, occupation and flood experience, high material loss during the flood was negatively correlated with postflood trust levels. In contrast, housing stability and perceived fairness in the distribution of disaster aid were positively correlated with postflood levels of trust. Our study confirms past research on the variability of trust in postdisaster situations and the importance of investing in state–civil society relations.

Civil Society Contributions to Policy Innovation in the PR China, edited by Andreas Fulda. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. xv+311 pp. £75.00 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article FreeReviewsCivil Society Contributions to Policy Innovation in the PR China, edited by Andreas Fulda. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. xv+311 pp. £75.00 (cloth).Xiaoyuan ShangXiaoyuan ShangUniversity of New South Wales, Sydney Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThis book discusses the reach and significance of civil society building and development in China by way of several policy domains: environmental (part 1), social development (civil society activities involving labor, disabilities, and public services) (part 2) and, in part 3, the opportunities and challenges for European Union–China civil society collaboration and the impact of this on public policy making and implementation in China.The book is useful for readers who want to understand current state-society relations in China because, first, it examines these relations from a “state in society” perspective (9), trying to avoid the biases inherent in approaches that are “state centric” or “society centric.” In the current institutional arrangements, a policy innovation is more likely to be realized if a civil society organization cooperates with the government whenever feasible. From this perspective, some of the authors in this edited book raise the view that collaborative state-society relations are a necessary precondition for the extension of Chinese civil society. However, when a civil society organization does collaborate, it may have to sacrifice its autonomy.Second, the case studies included in the book demonstrate that the public policy innovations promoted by civil society organizations are important to the state. Because of the complicated governance challenges facing the state and civil society, new types of governance are sought after, and cooperation between the state and civil society becomes more important than before. One step in this direction is government procurement of public services from civil society organizations. A case study by Yang Tuan, Huang Haoming, and Andreas Fukda examines this new trend in governance at the local level. The practice of procuring such services is more commonly accepted by local governments in relatively richer areas in China and was recently endorsed by the central government. This is not only a new form of governance for the state but also a new participation channel for civil society organizations.As the book shows, there is an imbalance in the development of relations between the state and civil society in different policy domains. For example, the book’s three chapters on state–civil society relations in the domain of environmental policies show that more political space exists for environmental organizations to participate in policy innovation than in, say, industrial relations. The case study on labor NGOs suggests that independent labor NGOs have to deal with an unclear legal status, and heavily rely on foreign donations for their organizational survival. The evidence indicates that Chinese civil society may develop more easily in domains that are “nonpolitical” in nature, and where common agreements are easier to research. This has been true of environmental problems, which affect all social groups, and where considerable pressures to act can therefore be exerted on the state.A reader gets the impression that the autonomic development of civil society is still a question in China, and that civil society organizations have a long way to go to earn an independent existence. This is not a question raised by the book. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The China Journal Volume 77January 2017 Published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/689232 For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Interface between the State and Civil Society in Nepal

The paper explores the state-civil society relations in Nepal, which have gone through many ups and downs from various perspectives. This is important for the reason that the two terms are now in the forefront of public debate: Rajya – the state and Nagarik Samaj – civil society. Voices, both in favour and against the state and civil society, are now audible everywhere. The debate has picked up momentum, particularly after the regime change of 2006, when civil society took a new birth and played a crucial role in regime. However, all is not well with the role of both state and civil society. The point at stake, however, is how should one describe the state-civil society relations in Nepal; how they influence, behave, and view each other; and where do they converge and diverge? These are some of the important issues that need to be looked into carefully. The rise of right-based civil society organisations (CSOs) in Nepal has further created confusion vis-a-vis state. Within these contexts, paper here attempts to explain the extant interface.

Women’s Movements in Portugal and Spain: Democratic Processes and Policy Outcomes

ABSTRACTPortugal and Spain underwent dramatic transformations between 1974 and the early 1980s, transitioning from dictatorships to democracies. In this article I explore why Portugal was faster than Spain in adopting key gender-rights policies (e.g., divorce, equal pay, state feminism) during the period in question. Bridging insights from the democratization, social movement, and women’s studies literatures, I argue that Portugal’s accelerated policy path on women’s rights can be explained by three complex factors: (1) the nature of the revolutionary transition, which structured options for women’s movements and for institutional actors; (2) the configuration of movement-party alliances; and (3) supranational pressures to reorganize the state-civil society relationship. The study contributes to the engendering of democratization processes in Iberia by paying close attention to the interconnected agency of women’s movements with other political actors at a time of regime transformation.

Voluntarism and civil society in the neoliberal era: a study on the palliative care movement in Kerala

Locating itself within the debates on state-civil society relationship in the neoliberal era, this paper analyzes the community-led palliative care movement in Kerala and explores the nature of civil society participation and state patronage that made this movement highly successful in the state. The paper explains how civil society organizations including religious groups play pivotal role by providing volunteers and ensuring resources from the community for the everyday functioning of this movement aimed at providing palliative care to the terminally ill. The paper discusses the curious scenario where this initiative could persuade the state to replicate this model and incorporate it in the health delivery system of the government, thereby making Kerala the first state in India with an official palliative care policy and statewide support system in place. While discussing the specific socio-historic context that facilitated increased involvement of civil society organizations in the welfare programs in conjunction with the state in Kerala, the paper suggests that this experiment complicates the understanding of a neoliberal welfare state and highlights the necessity to analyze the local level manifestations of neoliberalism in different socio-political settings.

‘What Will We Be without Them?’ Rural Intellectuals in the State and NGOs in Zimbabwe’s Crisis-Ridden Countryside

Research on NGOs in rural Zimbabwe suggests that ideas of automatic opposition between ‘civil society’ and/or non-governmental organizations and authoritarian states are too simple. Rather, relations between state and non-state organizations such as those referenced in this article, in the rural district of Mangwe about 200 kilometres south-west of Zimbabwe’s Bulawayo, are symbiotic. This contrasts with urban areas where political histories have led to more contested state-civil society relations in the last two decades, during which social movements with a degree of counter-hegemonic (or counter-regime) aspirations were allied with many NGOs and opposition political parties. Gramsci’s idea of ‘rural intellectuals’ could complement the widely used notion of ‘organic intellectuals’ to examine the members of the intelligentsia appearing to be at one with subordinate groups in the countryside and at odds with the state. Likewise state workers distant from the centre and close to their class peers in NGOs as well as their ‘subjects’ may operate with autonomy from their masters in ruling parties and states to assist, rather than repress, citizens and also to co-operate with NGO workers. This research indicates that discerning how hegemony works across whole state-society complexes is more complicated than usually perceived, given the many regional variations therein.

2016 Taiwan Elections: Significance and Implications

This year's Taiwan elections gave the Democratic Progressive Party a clear mandate to rule Taiwan again. Since 2014 Taiwanese millennials have played a decisive role in Taiwan's significant democratic change. The elections can be appreciated best in the context of the changing state-civil society relations of the preceding eight years of 2008-2015. The revival of civil society activism since 2008 and the explosive force of the Sunflower Movement in 2014 finally transmitted social activism into electoral politics. President Tsai responded to these changes in her inaugural address by placing cross-Strait relations in the context of regional peace and stability and making no mention of the“1992 Consensus.” Instead, she emphasized domestic development and reforms to safeguard Taiwan to be a democratic and free country.

The privatization of neighborhood governance and the production of urban space

A pivotal innovation in the production of urban space has been the rise of privately governed neighborhoods overseen by homeowners associations (HOAs). One in every five American households resides in an HOA neighborhood regulated by conditions, covenants, and restrictions amounting to what has been referred to as a “quiet revolution” of urban politics. Their proliferation across cities warrants greater attention as they signify the transformation of state–civil society relations whereby nonstate entities are increasingly important actors in shaping the terrain of citizenship. HOAs are granted broad powers by the state and have profound effects on homeowners’ experiences of everyday life through regulations that generate neighborhood space. This article examines the different modalities of governance deployed by HOAs to shape homeowner participation in producing a certain yard aesthetic, namely the lawn. While the lawn is a dominant cultural landscape in the United States, we find that homeowners in privately governed neighborhoods report a greater commitment to producing a lush, green, well-manicured lawn and apply higher rates of fertilizer to their yards than households in nonprivately governed neighborhoods. Although HOAs exercise power by directly regulating homeowners’ spatial practices, they also govern indirectly by holding out the possibility of a sense of place and belonging that is connected to the production of aestheticized and commoditized landscapes. The deployment of both disciplinary and governmental forms of power supplement each other in the ongoing process of building neighborhood citizens that actively shape circuits of global capitalist investment in cities through the imaginary of neighborhood community.