Weakness Of Civil Society Research Articles

The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe by Marc Morjé s> Howard (review)

786 SEER, 82, 3, 2004 'super-rich'elitist classwithin many of the transitioneconomies. It compares the various schools of thought largely captured within the 'political capital versus human capital' argument and tests a number of hypotheses. Szelenyi and Glassconclude that neither access to networksand political connections, nor personal qualificationsand skillsdetermine an individual'sentrance into the elite class of economies under transition. Again, this chapter is of an exceptional standard, highly accessible and presents critical reasoning in a logical manner. Itscontributionto the entirecollection is clearlyevident. In summary, stronger editing of the weaker sections (specificallychapters two and seven)would have added to a robustcollection of individualchapters. Aston Business School, Birmingham Jo CROTTY Howard, Marc Morje. The Weakness of CivilSocietyin Post-Communist Europe. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003. Xiii + 2o6 pp. Illustrations . Tables. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. $24.00: ?I7.95 (paperback). MARC HOWARD'S studyof civil society in post-CommunistEurope opens with theparliamentaryelectionsin Germanyin i998. These electionswere marked by a mysteryparty calling itself 'BKD'. It soon transpiredthat this partywas sponsored by none other than BurgerKing ('BurgerKing furDeutschland'), and were happily making the most of the surroundingmedia hype. Howard uses this incident to illustrate the principle thesis of his study, that 'postcommunist societies have been far more successful in developing a private "hamburger society" than they have been in creating an actively engaged "civilsociety"in the public sphere'(p. xii). This state of social disengagement,Howard argues,is a directconsequence of mandatoryparticipationin state-controlledorganizationsunder Communism (chaptertwo). Post-Communistpopulationsareloath to participatein any kind of public activities,including church-going, playing sports,involvement in labour unions, and other such pastimes that are perceived to fosterpublicspiritedness . The persistence of private networks, which cultivate closed channels and strong ties represent another feature of the Communist background that has contributed to an 'undermined' civic consciousness in post-Communist Europe. The overall dissatisfaction of post-Communist citizens with the new political system adds yet another incentive for them 'to withdraw even furtherfrom public activities'and to display 'post-communist disappointment'. Howard claims that the latter factor has not been given its due significance by those studying societal structures in post-Communist countries. Chapter three deals, unfortunately rather late in the volume, with the nature of 'civil society'. The chapter is engaging and puts the author's conception of civil society in the context of Granovetta's classic and Putnam's latest arguments about the importance of 'weak ties' and their relation to democratization. In post-Communist countries in the language of network theory private networks have retained their 'strong ties' and have not developed the kind of cross-cutting 'weak ties' that would open the door to a wider set of acquaintances, contacts, and opportunities. This reflects on the REVIEWS 787 enduring peculiarity of the distinction between public and private in postCommunist societiesand on the blockedchannels for democratization. The book relies predominantly on interview data and surveys, one being the 1995-97 World Values Survey (WVS), and the other a personal study carried out by the author. The WVS surveyed, across countries around the world, membershipof the followingnine typesof organization:(i) churchand religious organizations, (2) sports and recreation clubs, (3) educational, cultural or artistic organizations, (4) labour unions, (5)political parties or movements, (6)environmentalorganizations,(7)professionalassociations,(8) charitable organizations, and (g) any other voluntary organization (p. 55). The results of Howard's study include analysis of the responses to a survey carriedout in Russia and Germanyin I999. Howard considersthe findingsof the WorldValues Surveyin chapterfour, testifying that the older the democracy or post-authoritarian country, the higher its rates of organization membership, and concludes that postCommunist countriesgenerallyhave low ratesof organizationmembership. In chapter five he explains why this is the case with reference to the three overridingfactors for post-Communist civil weakness. Importantly, Howard is concerned with studyingordinarycitizensratherthan elitesand institutions. Such a focus, he suggests,reveals a greateraffinitybetween post-Communist societies,and hasimplicationsfortheprospectsfordemocracyand democratic stabilityin the region. Given the powerful and lasting legacy of the Communist experience, Howard does not envisage the possibilityof rapidand radicalchange in 'civic skills'.He does suggesttwopotentialmechanismsforchange:one generational (throughthe gradualmeans of replacing older people) and one 'facilitatedby a more active role of the state in supporting and working with voluntary organisations,and by relatingthem to...

Democracy without Civil Society?

The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe. By Marc Morje Howard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 220 pp., $60.00 cloth: (ISBN: 0-521-81223-2), $24.00 paper: (ISBN: 0-521-01152-3). To better understand the foundations of democracy has been a goal of perennial interest to political scientists. It is a question, however, that assumes even greater urgency at times when the construction of democracy is high on the international agenda—such as after the Second World War, after the collapse of the Communist regimes in Europe, and after recent interventions in the Middle East. It is also a topic that allows more introspective political observers to reflect about the quality of democracy in their own countries. Nowhere is this more the case than in the United States, a country in which democracy has become the core political value. These considerations form the background to Marc Morje Howard's highly readable book: The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe . In it, Howard investigates the foundations of democracy in post-Communist Europe, but he approaches that case with a toolkit of arguments from a wide range of other empirical and theoretical contexts. As such the book makes both a narrow and a broad contribution to the field, and even though it will be of primary interest to students of post-Communism, it also has much to offer theorists of democracy—especially those scholars with an interest in the concepts of civil society and social capital. Howard's argument consists of three main theses: (1) that among the foundations of successful democratic government, civil society is crucial; (2) that civil society is as yet weakly developed in post-Communist Europe and has, if anything, become weaker during the post-Communist period; and (3) that this weakness is explained largely by the Communist experience itself, which produced distinctive behavioral patterns and dispositions common to the …

The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe

The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe

State >Legitimacy and the (In)significance of Democracy in Post‐Communist Russia

A few apocalyptic predictions of a post‐communist ‘maelstrom’ notwithstanding,1 the break‐up of the USSR was initially greeted by optimistic assessments of the prospects for democracy in the ‘new R...

Book Reviews

Marc Morjé Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Review by Mitchell P. SmithCatherine Epstein, The Last Revolutionaries. German Communists and their Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003)Review by Henry KrischVictor Grossman (Stephen Wechsler), Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003)Review by A. James McAdamsWinfried Menninghaus, Disgust: Theory and History of a Strong Sensation, trans. Howard Eilard and Joel Golb (Albany: SUNY Press, 2003)Review by Silke WeineckPeter Eli Gordon, Rosenzweig and Heidegger: Between Judaism and German Philosophy (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2003)Review by Joel FreemanDominik Geppert, The Postwar Challenge: Cultural, Social, and Political Change in Western Europe, 1945-58 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)Review by Richard L. Merritt and Anna MerrittBrett Klopp, German Multiculturalism: Immigrant Integration and the Transformation of Citizenship (Westport, CT: Prager, 2002)Review by John Brady

Why the Middle East is Economically Underdeveloped: Historical Mechanisms of Institutional Stagnation

Although a millennium ago the Middle East was not an economic laggard, by the 18th century it exhibited clear signs of economic backwardness. The reason for this transformation is that certain components of the region's legal infrastructure stagnated as their Western counterparts gave way to the modern economy. Among the institutions that generated evolutionary bottlenecks are the Islamic law of inheritance, which inhibited capital accumulation; the absence in Islamic law of the concept of a corporation and the consequent weaknesses of civil society; and the waqf, which locked vast resources into unproductive organizations for the delivery of social services. All of these obstacles to economic development were largely overcome through radical reforms initiated in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, traditional Islamic law remains a factor in the Middle East's ongoing economic disappointments. The weakness of the region's private economic sectors and its human capital deficiency stand among the lasting consequences of traditional Islamic law.

The weakness of civil society in post-communist Europe

The weakness of civil society in post-communist Europe

Political Parties and Democratic Consolidation in Africa

It has been assumed that African political parties should play a key role in democratic consolidation. This article first assesses their performance in terms of particular democratic functional requirements. Second, it seeks to explain apparent shortcomings in their performance by reference to the imbalance of party systems and 'weakness' of parties, especially opposition parties, and also by reference to certain underlying factors. These include the economic context, weakness of civil society, prevalence of ethnicity as a basis for political mobilization, personalism, clientelism and strong presidencies.

Capitalist Development, Entrepreneurial Class, and Democratization in China

The structural theory of democracy postulates that capitalism is an important, if not indispensable, catalyst to democratization. For some scholars, capitalism produces a bourgeoisie that is vital to democracy largely because this class, unlike the aristocracy, does not have to depend on coercive state power to survive and thrive.1 For many others who concentrate on contemporary democratic transitions, capitalism expands the middle class that at a certain evolutionary stage would turn to crucial social pressure for democratization.2 Most structural theorists agree that capitalist development, by its logic, would transform the state-society relations and shape a pattern of class alliances in favor of the growth of a whose main function is to provide a counterweight to state power and prevent its tyrannical abuse.3 China's seemingly steady march toward capitalism has prompted many China specialists to take a structural approach. They argue that the lack or weakness of civil society in China accounted for the failure of the 1989 pro-democracy movement and impeded democratic transition. Yet capitalist development

Civil Society, Trade Unions and Post-Soviet Democratisation: Evidence from Russia and Ukraine

CIVIL SOCIETY IS A DOMINANT THEME in post-communist politics. It was a prominent discourse in much of the anti-communist dissident literature, and in the past decade scores of works have been produced celebrating civil society's role both in bringing down communist regimes and in serving as a foundation for a new democratic order.' This work is often based on the Tocquevillian principle that civil society-defined as a social sphere distinct from the family, market and the state, and composed of independent, voluntary associations and networks of citizens-plays a central role in democratic consolidation by fostering values of citizenship, community and political participation among the population and by creating structures to prevent the emergence of authoritarian state power. Carothers notes: 'civil society is the connective tissue that transitional countries need to join the forms of democracy with their intended substance, to ensure that new democratic institutions and processes do not remain hollow boxes and empty rituals'.2 Causal arguments about the strength or weakness of civil society can be invoked to explain the relative success (Poland) or failure (Russia) of democratic consolidation in a number of post-communist countries. Whereas civil society is ubiquitous in academic and political discourse, trade unions are far less popular as subjects for analysis. This, however, is puzzling on several grounds. First, in all post-communist states trade unions are by far the largest organisations in civil society, with membership in the millions. Yet, for all the attention lavished on civil society in general, this sizeable component of civil society has not been given concerted attention. Second, trade unions and working-class movements historically have been identified as crucial forces for democracy.3 One would therefore think that their role in post-communist politics and in democratisation efforts would be worth examination. Third, given the twin demands of democratisation and marketisation in post-communist states and the position of unions as potentially important actors in both political and economic arenas, one would think they would be important players in the political economy of post-communist reform. Indeed, some in the immediate post-communist period did make mention of the need

The Weakness of Postcommunist Civil Society

Civil society continues to thrive as an object of study in postcommunist Europe, as in most other regions of the world. Much of the literature on postcommunist civil society, however, stresses its relative weakness, whether compared to other regions or to the high expectations of 1989–91. This emphasis on weakness is especially notable given that, only a decade ago, so many observers expected postcommunist civil society to be unusually strong and vibrant. Indeed, although specialists on Latin America and Southern Europe were also beginning to take the concept seriously in the 1980s, most scholars agree that the rapid revival of civil society as a major object of study resulted largely from developments surrounding the collapse of communism. The weakness of postcommunist civil society leads to a host of important questions. Yet is it actually correct to assert that postcommunist civil society is particularly weak? It seems clear that, when compared to the idealistic hopes of 1989–91, the current political, economic, and social realities have fallen short. When compared to other regions, however, the conclusion that postcommunist civil society is distinctively weak needs further substantiation. Such evidence is provided by the World Values Survey, which shows that in a wider crossregional perspective—compared against both older democracies and postauthoritarian countries—postcommunist countries do have relatively lower levels of organizational membership. This finding suggests that, even though there is some variation among the countries of postcommunist Europe, on the whole they still appear to form a coherent group. These empirical findings may affect the prospects for democracy and Marc Morje Howard is assistant professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. This article draws on his forthcoming book, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Civil Society and Democracy: A Zambian Case Study

At the beginning of the 1990s, theorists talked of an 'international momentum' of democracy, and focused on the central role of civil society in advancing the democratic process. This approach was used to explore the transition in Zambia, but a close reading of events before and after Zambia's 1991 election indicates that 'older political logics' do not disappear merely because authoritarian regimes are challenged by forces from wider society. In Zambia, a range of civil actors were excluded from the transition negotiations by an agreement between Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) leaders and Kenneth Kaunda at the little known Mulungushi (constitutional) Conference in July 1991. This exclusion confirmed the weakness of civil society, and laid the basis for an authoritarian resurgence under the Third Republic MMD government in which a restricted social group established its dominance. Within eighteen months of taking office, observers were speculating on the MMD's institutionalisation of a de facto one-party state as 'older political logics' reasserted themselves. This period laid the foundation for subsequent political events as an ever-increasing range of actors were excluded from the political arena.

NETWORKS, IDENTITY, AND (IN)ACTION

In analyses of the political quiescence in Russia today the emphasis is predominantly on the lack or deficit of something - above all, the weakness of civil society. In order to avoid this one-sided and arguably biased Western way to view the Russians' strategies of cooperation and challenge, a look is taken, in a comparative perspective, at people's daily practices. The data consist of the information on the personal networks of secondary school teachers in St Petersburg and Helsinki, including information on various forms of cooperation for common benefit. The majority of the Finns were engaged in the activities of formal associations; this was not true of the Russians. Typical organized activities among the St Petersburg teachers were linked to recurrent events or celebrations in the school context. Their organized action was based on the school as a community, whereas the Helsinki teachers based their organization rather on horizontal ties and group activity grounded on professional interests. A kind of community orientation in the Russian teachers' activities appears an active adaptation to the present difficult conditions in Russia. It implies that Russian civil society may be lastingly impregnated with elements of trust and solidarity not crucial to standard Western concepts of civil society.

Paranoids may be persecuted: post-totalitarian retroactive justice

Retroactive justice against perpetrators in post-totalitarian, as distinct of post-authoritarian, democracies is constrained by the absence of human resources for the rule of law and the weakness of civil society. The limited application of lustration and other sanctions in postcommunist countries is understood in the context of politics of transition, political actors, motivations, constraints and beliefs. With special attention to the Czech Republic, the ineffectiveness of lustration is exemplified by the damage inflicted on post-communist societies by the nomenklatura and the former secret police.

The dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: culture, politics, and the formation of a modern diaspora

The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, by Joel Beinin. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1998, xii + 267 pages. Append. to p. 274. Notes to p. 306. Bibl. to p. 322. Index to p. 329. n.p. Reviewed by Eric Davis In its initial phase, the study of minorities in the modem Middle East, which began with Albert Hourani's Minorities in the Arab World (1947), was relatively non-controversial and largely theoretical. The study of minorities acquired a negative connotation only with the rising interest in theories of imperialism, dependency and neocolonialism in the wake of decolonization and the Vietnam War. For younger scholars especially, the study of minorities came to be viewed as an attempt to give intellectual sustenance to efforts to fragment the Middle East (e.g., by undermining Arab nationalism). In recent years, the interest in minorities seems to have faded. While the reasons for this are difficult to pinpoint, the emigration of minorities from the Middle East-such as the Copts from Egypt and the Maronites from Lebanon-certainly represents an important factor. In light of the relative paucity of studies on minorities, Joel Beinin's analysis of the Egyptian Jewish community is a welcome addition. Thoroughly researched and written with great empathy for its subjects, this study eschews a chronological narrative in favor of a tableau that emphasizes this community's social and cultural heterogeneity and diverse geographic origins. The author's intriguing portrait is not merely an account of the rise and decline of the Egyptian Jewish community, the majority of which left Egypt after the 1956 invasion by British, French, and Israeli forces. It also presents a critique of the shortcomings of master narratives, especially those of traditional Zionism and Egyptian nationalism, in explaining the dynamics and structure of this community. As such, this volume offers insights into other transformations in the Middle East, such as the weakness of civil society, reflected especially by the lack of tolerance for cultural and political diversity. The author's study also reminds the reader that, in attributing blame to Egyptian Jews for the creation of a Zionist state, a great deal of Egyptian intellectual discourse is still dominated by a conspiratorial approach (pp. 248-50). Read simply from a pre-1956 cultural perspective, this study reminds the reader of the tremendous loss to Arab and other Middle Eastern states (e.g., Iraq) that resulted from the exodus of the Jews and other minorities during decolonization. Among the many members of the Jewish community who had enhanced the cultural and social fabric of everyday Egyptian life were great singers such as Layla Murad, civic leaders such as Ren6 Qattawi (who lectured me in Paris in late 1974 on his family's anti-Zionist credentials), wealthy entrepreneurs such as the Cicurels, and leftist political activists such as Henri Curiel. Thoroughly Arabized and Egyptianized, on the one hand, and drawn from diverse geographic origins and divided into competing Rabbanite and Karaite communities, on the other, Egyptian Jews were, one can argue, as divided internally as they were by the divisions that separated them from the larger Arab Muslim populace. …

State, Society, and Political Change in China and Hungary

The 1989 Tiananmen protest movement in China and the collapse of the Communist regimes in eastern Europe have generated tremendous academic interest in the development of civil society in state socialist systems. The suppression of the protest movement in China has often been attributed to the weakness of civil society, whereas the successful democratic transformation of eastern Europe has been ascribed to its strength.' In itself, however, a focus on civil society can provide only a partial understanding of recent developments in the Communist world. A society-centered approach can not fully explain how a civil society could develop under state socialism in the first place, or why civil society is larger and more effective in some state socialist countries than in others. Answering these critical questions requires that the development of civil society be studied in relation to the institutional framework of the state. The number, capacities, orientations, and demands of the social groups that comprise civil society all develop, to a large extent, through a process of interaction with the structures and activities of the state. The two cases examined here are China and Hungary, two state socialist countries that pioneered economic and political liberalization, Hungary since the early 1960s and China since the late 1970s, but whose reforms have thus far achieved different results. This paper traces the development of a more autonomous society in both countries within the framework of a reforming state socialist regime. It argues that the different political outcomes may be explained by the different patterns of interaction and coalition between state and society in the two countries.

Le complexe militaro-industriel, la guerre du Golfe et la démocratie en France

Andrée Michel, The Military-Industrial Complex, the Gulf War, and Democracy in France The French government's support for a military solution to the crisis in the Persian Gulf region can be explained in terms of socio-political and economic factors such as the elitism of the French system of education, the structural weakness of French parliamentary democracy, energy policy, and the reorientation of the French economy over the past ten years. These factors explain what appears to be the weakness of civil society in France. The military-industrial complex has penetrated virtually every dimension of social and cultural life in France including education, mass communications, scientific research, and the "entertainment industry".

Basketball, Civil Society and the Post Colonial State in the Commonwealth Caribbean

In this paper the autonomous voluntary organizations of basketball leagues in ten countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean are examined. An index reflecting the strength of basketball organization, play and popular support in each country was constructed and and a framework to account for these differences was employed. The authors suggest that the significance of basketball organization lies in the fact that voluntary associations are poorly developed in the region. West Indian scholars have tied the stunted development of a civil society in the region to the historically rooted overly centralized political structures characteristic of Caribbean states. The weakness of civil society has restricted the democratic content of West Indian societies, despite the presence of formal democratic institutions. Finally, the implications of the existence and differential strength of basketball associations for the development of civil society and participatory democracy in the Anglophone Caribbean are explored.