Michael Edwards - The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society

the oxford handbook of
CIVIL S O CI ETY
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CIVIL SOCIETY
Edited by
MICHAEL EDWARDS
1
3
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The Oxford handbook of civil society / edited by Michael Edwards.

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ISBN 978-0-19-539857-1
1. Civil society. I. Edwards, Michael, 1957-
JC337.O94 2011
300dc22 2010046063
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Contents
Contributors ix
Part I Introduction
1. Introduction: Civil Society and the Geometry of Human Relations 3

Michael Edwards
2. The History of Civil Society Ideas 15

John Ehrenberg
Part II The Forms Of Civil Society
3. The Nonprot Sector 29

Steven Rathgeb Smith
4. Development NGOs 42
Alan Fowler
5. Grassroots Associations 55
Frances Kunreuther
6. Social Movements 68
Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani
7. Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurs 80

Alex Nicholls
8. Global Civil Society 93

Lisa Jordan
vi contents
Part III Geographical Perspectives
9. Civil Society in the United States 109

Theda Skocpol
10. Civil Society in Latin America 122

Evelina Dagnino
11. Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe 134

Marc Morj Howard
12. Civil Society in the Middle East 146

Eberhard Kienle
13. Civil Society in China 159

Jude Howell
14. Civil Society in India 171

Neera Chandhoke
15. Civil Society in Sub-Saharan Africa 183

Ebenezer Obadare
Part IV The Norms Of Civil Society
16. Civil Society and Social Capital 197

Michael Woolcock
17. Civil and Uncivil Society 209

Clifford Bob
18. Civil Society and Civility 220

Nina Eliasoph
19. Civil Society and Equality 232

Sally Kohn
20. Civil Society and Diversity 245

Hilde Coff and Catherine Bolzendahl
contents vii
21. Civil Society and Religion 257

Donald E. Miller
22. Civil Society and Spirituality 270

Claudia Horwitz
Part V The Spaces of Civil Society
23. Civil Society and Government 285

Nancy L. Rosenblum and Charles H. T. Lesch
24. Civil Society and Civil Liberties 298

Mark Sidel
25. Civil Society and the Public Sphere 311

Craig Calhoun
26. Civil Society and Public Work 324

Harry C. Boyte
27. Civil Society in the Digital Age 337

Roberta G. Lentz
28. Civil Society and Public Journalism 349

Charles Lewis
29. Civic Knowledge 362

Peter Levine
Part VI The Achievements Of Civil Society
30. Civil Society and Democracy 377

Mark E. Warren
31. Civil Society and Poverty 391

Solava Ibrahim and David Hulme
32. Civil Society and Peace 404

Jenny Pearce
viii contents
33. Civil Society and Power 416

John Gaventa
34. Civil Society and the Market 428

Simon Zadek
Part VII Supporting Civil Society
35. Civil Society and Institutional Philanthropy 443

William A. Schambra and Krista L. Shaffer
36. Civil Society and Grassroots Philanthropy 455

G. Albert Ruesga
37. Assisting Civil Society and Promoting Democracy 468

Omar G. Encarnacin
38. Conclusion: Civil Society as a Necessary and Necessarily

Contested Idea 480
Michael Edwards
Index 493
Contributors
Clifford Bob is Associate Professor of Political Science at Duquesne University.

He is the author of The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and
International Activism (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and is writing a new
book on transnational clashes between ideologically opposed civil society groups.
Catherine Bolzendahl is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of

California, Irvine. Her research largely focuses on gender, political power,
citizenship, and social policy in Western democracies.
Harry C. Boyte is founder and codirector of the Center for Democracy and
Citizenship at Augsburg College, and a Senior Fellow at the University of
Minnesotas Humphrey Institute. He is the author of many books including
Everyday Politics: Reconnecting Citizens and Public Life (Pennsylvania University
Press, 2005).
Craig Calhoun is President of the U.S. Social Science Research Council and
University Professor at New York University. His books include Cosmopolitanism
and Belonging (Routledge, 2011) and Possible Futures (New York University Press,
2011).
Neera Chandhoke is Professor of Political Science at Delhi University and the author
of The Conceits of Civil Society (Oxford University Press, 2003), Beyond Secularism
(Oxford University Press India, 1999) and State and Civil Society (Sage, 1995).
Hilde Coff is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Utrecht University. Her main

research interests include civic and political attitudes and participation, and
partisan politics.
Evelina Dagnino holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University and is
Professor of Political Science at the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Mario Diani is ICREA Research Professor in the Department of Political and

Social Sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.
Michael Edwards is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos in New York, and

directed the Ford Foundations Governance and Civil Society Program between
x contributors
1999 and 2008. His books include Civil Society (second edition, Polity Press, 2009)
and Small Change: Why Business Wont Save the World (Berrett-Koehler, 2010).
John Ehrenberg is Senior Professor of Political Science at the Brooklyn Campus of

Long Island University. He is the author of several books including Civil Society:
The Critical History of an Idea (New York University Press, 1999).
Nina Eliasoph is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern

California. She is the author of Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in
Everyday Life (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and Making Volunteers: Civic Life
After Welfares End (Princeton University Press, 2011).
Omar G. Encarnacin is Professor and Chair of Political Studies at Bard College,

where he teaches comparative politics and Iberian and Latin American politics. He
is the author of The Myth of Civil Society (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and Spanish
Politics: Democracy after Dictatorship (Polity, 2008).
Alan Fowler holds professorial appointments at the Erasmus University in the

Netherlands and the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. He is an author
and co-editor of many books on civic-driven change and NGO management.
John Gaventa is Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, University of

Sussex and a member of the Participation, Power, and Social Change team there.
He is the author of Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an
Appalachian Valley (University of Illinois Press, 1980) and more recent books on
citizen action.
Claudia Horwitz is the founding director of stone circles at The Stone House in
Mebane, North Carolina. She is the author of The Spiritual Activist (Penguin,
2002).
Marc Morj Howard is Professor of Government at Georgetown University. He is

the author of two award-winning books, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-
Communist Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and The Politics of
Citizenship in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2009), and he has published
articles in numerous academic journals.
Jude Howell is Professor and Director of the Centre for Civil Society at the
London School of Economics. She is the coauthor (with Jeremy Lind) of Counter-
Terrorism, Aid and Civil Society: Before and After the War on Terror (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010) and editor of Governance in China (Rowan and Littleeld, 2003).
David Hulme is Professor of Development Studies at the Institute for

Development Policy and Management, and Director of the Brooks World Poverty
contributors xi
Institute and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, all at the University of
Manchester.
Solava Ibrahim is a Research Fellow in Global Poverty Reduction at the Brooks

World Poverty Institute and Chronic Poverty Research Centre at the University of
Manchester.
Lisa Jordan is Executive Director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation and
previously oversaw the Ford Foundations Global Civil Society Program. She is the
coeditor of NGO Accountability; Politics, Principles and Innovations (Earthscan,
2006) and has published numerous articles on civil society and global governance.
Eberhard Kienle is a research professor at the Centre National de la Recherche

Scientique (CNRS) in Paris and teaches at the Institut dEtudes Politiques in
Grenoble. From 2007 to 2010 he was the Program Ofcer for Governance and Civil
Society in the Ford Foundations Cairo ofce.
Sally Kohn is a community organizer, writer, and political satirist. She is the Chief
Agitation Ofcer of the Movement Vision Lab, a grassroots think tank based in
Brooklyn, New York.
Frances Kunreuther is the Director of the Building Movement Project and a

Fellow at New York Universitys Research Center for Leadership and Action. She
has coauthored two books, From the Ground Up (ILR Press, 2007) and Working
Across Generations (Jossey-Bass, 2009).
Roberta G. Lentz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History and

Communication Studies at McGill University, and a former Program Ofcer in
Electronic Media Policy at the Ford Foundation from 2001 to2007.
Charles H. T. Lesch is a graduate student in the Department of Government at

Harvard University.
Peter Levine is Director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic
Learning and Engagement at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and
Public Service, Tufts University. His books include The Future of Democracy,
Engaging Young People in Civic Life (Tufts University Press, 2007) and Reforming
the Humanities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Charles Lewis is a professor and the founding executive editor of the Investigative
Reporting Workshop at American University in Washington, D.C. He earlier
founded the Center for Public Integrity, where he began the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (1997), Global Integrity (1999), and the
Fund for Independence in Journalism (2003).
xii contributors
Donald E. Miller is Professor of Religion and Director of the Center for Religion
and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Alex Nicholls is University Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship at the Said

Business School and Fellow in Management at Harris Manchester College at the
University of Oxford.
Ebenezer Obadare is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of

Kansas, Lawrence, and holds a Ph.D. in Social Policy from the London School of
Economics and Political Science. He is the coeditor of Encountering the Nigerian
State (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
Jenny Pearce is Professor of Latin American Politics and Director of the

International Centre for Participation Studies at the University of Bradford. She is
the coauthor of Civil Society and Development: A Critical Exploration (Lynne
Rienner, 2001) and Participation and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century City
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
Donatella della Porta is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Political and

Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Firenze.
Nancy L. Rosenblum is Senator Joseph Clark Professor of Ethics in Politics and

Government in the Department of Government at Harvard University. She is the
author of Membership and Morals: The Personal Uses of Pluralism in America
(2000) and On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship
(2008), both from Princeton University Press.
Albert Ruesga is President and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation. His
articles have appeared in Social Theory and Practice, the Journal of Popular Culture,
the Boston Book Review, and other publications. He is the founding editor of the
White Courtesy Telephone, a popular blog about nonprots and philanthropy.
William A. Schambra is the Director of the Hudson Institutes Bradley Center for
Philanthropy and Civic Renewal. He has written extensively on the theory and practice
of civil society, and is the editor of several volumes including As Far as Republican
Principles Will Admit: Collected Essays of Martin Diamond (AEI Press, 1992).
Krista Shaffer is a research fellow with Hudson Institutes Bradley Center for
Philanthropy and Civic Renewal.
Mark Sidel is Professor of Law, Faculty Scholar, and Lauridsen Family Fellow at
the University of Iowa, and President of the International Society for Third Sector
Research (ISTR). He is the author of Regulation of the Voluntary Sector: Freedom
and Security in an Era of Uncertainty (Routledge, 2009).
contributors xiii
Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at

Harvard University. She has written about public policies and civic engagement in
the United States, and her newest book is Health Care Reform and American
Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Steven Rathgeb Smith is Professor of Public Policy and Waldemar A. Nielsen

Chair in Philanthropy at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Georgetown
University.
Mark E. Warren is the Harold and Dorrie Merilees Professor for the Study of
Democracy at the University of British Columbia.
Michael Woolcock is Senior Social Scientist in the World Banks Development

Research Group, where he has worked since 1998. From 2007 to 2009 he was
Professor of Social Science and Development Policy, and founding Research
Director of the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester.
Simon Zadek is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Centre for Government and
Business of the J. F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Associate
Senior Fellow at the International Institute of Sustainable Development, and
Honorary Professor at the Centre for Corporate Citizenship of the University of
South Africa.
CIVIL S O CI ETY
part i
INTRODUCTION
chapter 1
INTRODUCTION: CIVIL
SOCIETY AND THE
GEOMETRY OF HUMAN
RELATIONS
michael edwards
Civil society is one of the most enduring and confusing concepts in social science,
and for that reason it is an excellent candidate for the analytic explorations that an
Oxford handbook can provide. The concept is enduring because it offers a mallea-
ble framework through which to examine the geometry of human relations, as
John Ehrenberg puts it in chapter 2the patterns of collective action and interac-
tion that provide societies with at least partial answers to questions of structure and
authority, meaning and belonging, citizenship and self-direction. From the time of
classical Greece, thinkers have returned to civil society as one way of generating new
energy and ideas around old and familiar questions as the world has changed around
them. But civil society is also a confusing and contested concept because so many
different denitions and understandings exist (often poorly connected to and artic-
ulated with the others), and because the claims that are sometimes made for its
explanatory power never quite match up to the complexities and contingencies of
real cultures and societies, especially when interpretations fashioned at one time or
in one part of the world are transported to another.
Hence, if civil society does shed light on the changing geometry of human rela-
tions, it does so not by substantiating any universal patterns, formulae, or equa-
tions, but by providing frames and spaces in which the agency and imagination of
individuals can be combined to address the key issues of the day. In this respect, and
4 introduction
borrowing from Michael Walzers (1998, 12324) oft-quoted denition, civil society
is the sphere of uncoerced human association between the individual and the state,
in which people undertake collective action for normative and substantive pur-
poses, relatively independent of government and the market. What levels of
coercion actually exist in practice, how independent civil society can be from
these other spheres of action, which norms are reproduced and represented, and
what purposes are pursued to what effect, are, of course, the stuff of continued
and necessary debates, but the beauty of this denition is that it can encompass
many different answers and interpretations while calling attention to a set of core
mechanisms and concerns. For this reason it provides the best starting point for the
discussion that follows.
1. The Rise and Fall of Civil Society

Although the theory and history of civil society are very broad, the ways in which
these ideas have been applied in policy, politics, and practice have been much nar-
rower and more restrictive, causing further confusion and creating rising dissatis-
faction in some quarters with the concept as a whole. Indeed, most of the problems
of the contemporary civil society debate stem from a powerful but unreectively
reductive approach that posits a mechanical relationship between certain forms of
voluntary citizen action, the norms and commitments they are presumed to gener-
ate, and the achievement of macro-level goals such as democratization and poverty
reduction. In this sense, although ideas about civil society have grown in popularity
among politicians and policy makers since the late 1980s, scholarly support has
fallen away, or at least has given way to rising suspicion and critical questioning. As
is common with other concepts in social science such as participation and devel-
opment, the more that ideas are appropriated in this way the muddier they become,
and the greater the need to subject them to critical interrogation in the ways that the
contributors to this handbook all seek to do. Indeed, this is the crucial task if the
promise of civil society is to be rescued from the confusion and manipulation that
have grown up around it.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the worldwide democratic openings
that followed, the idea of civil society returned to the center of intellectual and
political debate, and it continued to gain in prominence throughout the 1990s.
Everyone, it seemed, saw a strong civil society as one of the cornerstones of
democracy, good governance, pluralism, and the achievement of important social
and economic goals. Perhaps it was even the big idea for the twenty-rst century,
enjoying support across the political spectrum, in many different parts of the world,
and among theorists, activists, and policy makers alike (Edwards 2009). In this sense
civil society was the undoubted beneciary of broader political and intellectual
trends that sought alternatives to the deadening effects of state centralizationthe
civil society and the geometry of human relations 5
dominant motif of the 1960s and 1970sand the human consequences of an over-
reliance on the market: the dening theme of the twenty years that followed. Civil
society became the missing link in attempts to address the problems that these par-
adigms createdthe magic ingredient that might correct generations of state and
market failure and resolve the tensions between social cohesion and capitalism
that have preoccupied social scientists at least since the publication of Karl Polanyis
book The Great Transformation in 1944 (Polanyi [1944] 2001).
This sense of optimism was carried through the rst decade of the twenty-rst
century under the rubric of third-way politics, compassionate conservatism,
communitarian thinking, and other calls for greater citizen participation, devolu-
tion, and local empowerment across the United States, most of Europe, and a good
part of the developing world, at least in rhetorical terms. Perhaps it was no surprise
then that these ideas became formally embedded in state policy in the United
Kingdom in 2010 under the slogan of the big society, as dened by the Conservative
and Liberal Democratic parties. Even that most bureaucratic of institutions, the
European Union, began to encourage more participation in its political structures in
2010 in the form of legislation to encourage petitions and other forms of citizen
involvement.1 And building civil society across the Middle East has been an explicit
goal of U.S. foreign policy since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington,
D.C. of September 11th, 2001, aiming to cement democracy and siphon discontent
into more positive avenues for action in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
These are ambitiousand some would say foolishaspirations, which civil
society, or indeed any set of concepts and ideas, could never hope to meet, except by
reducing the richness and diversity of the concept to a set of predened, actionable
instruments of limited value and coherence in those areas that are amenable to
external funding and support. The result has been the proliferation of government-
sponsored volunteering programs, capacity-building for nongovernmental orga-
nizations (NGOs), and the replacement of civil society by a set of narrower concepts
that are easier to operationalize such as the third sector, the nonprot sector, and the
social economy. Debates about the cultural and political signicance of civil society
have been displaced by arguments about its economic role, particularly the supposed
benets that accrue from providing health, education, and other goods and services
on a not-for-prot basis to lower income groups as states continue to retreat from
their social obligations. What began as an additional category to the state and the
marketa distinct source of both value and valueshas been relegated to the status
of a residualsomething that exists only because these other institutions have blind
spots and weaknesses, greatly reducing its potential to act as a force for structural or
systemic change. Despite the continued rhetoric of public participation, intrusive
regulation by governmentsand at times outright repressionremains common-
place. And what was once a conversation about democracy and self-expression has
become increasingly technocratic, dominated by elites who seek to shape civil society
for their own ends and increasingly mimicking the language and practices of busi-
nesses and market-based investment (Edwards 2010). Of course, there has been ten-
sion for many years between radical and neo-liberal interpretations of civil society,
6 introduction
the former seeing it is the ground from which to challenge the status quo and build
new alternatives, and the latter as the service-providing not-for-prot sector neces-
sitated by market failure, but the increasing inuence of the latter is leading to
growing skepticism in some quarters about the power of collective action, social
movements, democratic decision making, community organizing and the noncom-
mercial values of solidarity, service and cooperation.
Will these trends undermine civil societys transformative potential by reduc-
ing the ability or willingness of citizens groups to hold public and private power
accountable for its actions, generate alternative ideas and policy positions, push for
fundamental changes in the structures of power, and organize collective action on a
scale large enough to force through long-term shifts in politics, economics, and
social relations? Perhaps, but on a more positive note the 2000s have also seen
increasing interest in new avenues for citizen organizing (often based around the
Internet and stimulated by other forms of information technology), and in the
potential of participatory, direct, and deliberative forms of democracy, in which
civil society has a central role to play. These trends have their roots in two develop-
ments. The rst is the inability of conventional, representative forms of democracy
to activate, channel, and aggregate the diverse voices of citizens in modern societies,
making additional avenues essential to the successful functioning of the polity. The
second is the continued popularity of citizen protest and other forms of direct orga-
nizing and engagement despite attempts to weaken, repress, or suppress them in
both authoritarian and democratic regimes. Perhaps there is something written
into the genetic code of human beings that resists attempts to bureaucratize the
self-organizing principles of civil society or reduce citizen action to a subset of the
market. Either way, these innovations, if they continue to grow and deepen, might
provide a counterweight to continued privatization and top-down government
control, returning some of the richness and radical intent of much civil society
thinking and practice to the mainstream.
Given these developments, it is all the more important that scholars bring their
traditional virtues of rigor, critical independence, long engagement, and historical
depth to the continuing debate about civil society and its many meanings, in order
to encourage a more analytical approach to its potential as a vehicle for understand-
ing and changing key elements of our world, but without dismissing or desiccating
the ability of ideas that are straightforward in their essence to inspire successive
generations in their struggles for a better life. This is the approach of all the
contributors to the Oxford Handbook of Civil Society, who, while recognizing the
contestation and cooptation that surround this concept, are not imprisoned or
immobilized by the conceptual and empirical difculties this presents. Instead, they
search for insights that both live in particular settings and have something to say
about civil society in broader terms across a range of contexts and approaches,
though it is fair to say that North American authors and experiences are somewhat
overrepresented. These insights help to create a more expansive vision of civil soci-
etys many possibilities, while guarding against the misuse or monopolization of the
term by any one set of interests or school of thought. And the starting point of this
process is to break apart the confusion and conation that surrounds civil society in
contemporary usage in order to create a strong foundation for reintegrating diverse
perspectives into a coherent set of theories, policies and practices.
2. The Forms of Civil Society

One of the reasons for the continued confusion of the civil society debate is that this
is such an elastic concept, seen by many as a part of society (the world of voluntary
associations), by some as a kind of society (marked out by certain social norms),
and by others as a space for citizen action and engagement (described as the public
square or sphere). Rather than seeing these denitions as mutually exclusive or
linked together in rigid, universal ways, it is more useful to explore how they relate
to each other in different contexts and theoretical approaches.
To that end, sections II and III of this handbook explore the debate from the
perspective of the rst of these denitionsthe forms of civil societyacross a
widely contrasting set of organizational and geographical conditions. This is impor-
tant because much current civil society research, funding, and policy making is
highly ethnocentric, informed by a partial reading of work dating back to the writ-
ings of Alexis de Tocqueville in mid-nineteenth-century America which placed vol-
untary associations of various kinds at the center of civil society thinking and action,
but later translated to settings with completely different cultures of collective action,
histories, and contemporary conditions. It is this sense of mimicry that has stimu-
lated the export of models developed in North America and Western Europe to
other parts of the world with unsurprisingly disappointing results. I have deliber-
ately chosen contexts such as China, India, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East
as key locations in which ideas about civil society are being contested and reimag-
ined, alongside more predictable contexts such as Eastern Europe, Latin America,
and the United States. Lisa Jordans chapter on global civil society explores the
increasingly important terrain of transnational or cross-border citizen organizing
that is adding yet more diversity to these patterns.
In the popular imagination, as well as in the minds of most funders and policy
makers, it is the forms of civil society that immediately spring to mind, often con-
ated with particular norms and achievements that they are assumed to produce or
generate. Certainly, citizen action, participation, and deliberation all require a phys-
ical infrastructure through which they can be expressed, and in that sense a focus on
voluntary and quasi-voluntary organizations is not only appropriate but extremely
important. Two caveats apply. The rst is that civil society organizations cover a
huge range of entities of different types, sizes, purposes, and levels of formality,
including community or grassroots associations, social movements, labor unions,
professional groups, advocacy and development NGOs, formally registered
nonprots, social enterprises, and many others. What is important about these
8 introduction
organizations is less their individual existence, identity, or functioning than the

ways in which they interact with each other and with the institutions of the state
and the market in complex civil society assemblages, ecologies, or ecosystems,
which vary widely in their details from one context to another. As in a real, biologi-
cal ecosystem, each element is related to the others and gains strength from the
systems diversity and organic growth, so that all members of society can activate
their interests and intents through associational life. Conversely, any move towards
greater homogeneity weakens the civil society ecosystem and leads to its erosion,
and eventually its collapse. This is why an over-reliance on any particular form
such as NGOs with weak roots in society, for exampleis so dangerous.
The second caveat is that associational ecosystems rarely lead to predictable
effects, because they are organic, constantly evolving human creations, most suc-
cessful when they are most embedded in the soil and water of local conditions and
mechanisms of support. Studying the gaps and disconnections of real associational
ecosystems is therefore likely to pay signicant dividends, even if it also complicates
the lessons that can be learned for policy and practice. Most important of all, it is
clear from an examination of any empirical setting that associations exhibit support
for a broad range of different norms, policies, and beliefs, especially at the level of
implementationthe means by which even widely agreed norms are assumed to be
achieved in practice across the institutions of the state, market, and civil society.
Therefore, the links between forms and norms that are often taken for granted in
analyses of civil society may be much weaker, or perhaps may not exist at all, outside
of particular historical and contemporary settings.
3. The Norms of Civil Society

Civil society is often used as shorthand for the kind of society in which people want
to live, marked out by norms, values, and achievements that they consider to be
positive and important. Indeed, these normative aspirations are the most powerful
source of energy that drives collective action, though they may take a very prag-
matic or prosaic form in meeting the day-to-day needs of individuals and their
communities. But it is clear that the forms of civil society do not automatically pro-
duce these norms and achievements, rst because opinions of what is positive
vary so widely within and between societies, and second because both societal prog-
ress and normative consensus result from the interaction of all the institutions in
which our dispositions are formed and action is taken, including those of the state
and the market. The idea that a natural transmission belt exists between a strong
civil society, measured in terms of the strength and density of voluntary associa-
tions, a society that is strong and civil, measured in terms of positive social norms
such as trust, tolerance, and cooperation, and a good society, measured by its
macro-level achievements in addressing poverty, inequality, discrimination, and
other large-scale ills, has been heavily criticized by civil society scholars, particularly
in the aftermath of Robert Putnams (1993; 2000) well-known claims about social
capital and its effects. Historical and empirical evidence also conrms that volun-
tary associations can play roles which are widely considered to be retrogressive, as
in Weimar Germany, the Lebanese civil wars, and ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, to
name but three examples.
However, to say that norms vary among citizens and their associations is a state-
ment of the obvious, and does little to advance the civil society debate, though it is
sometimes seized on by critics as a key weakness that invalidates the utility of these
ideas. Of more interest is to pose a series of questions about normative diversity and
conict that create space to consider whether and why these differences might be
signicant, how they might be reconciled, and whether any objective boundaries
can or should be drawn between the civil and the uncivilsomething of a
fools errand if Clifford Bob is to be believed in chapter 17. Without accepting that
all associations have to be schools of democratic citizenship, what impact do dif-
ferent kinds of civic participation have on social norms? Without accepting that all
good citizens must sign up to a standard normative agenda, what values do they
hold in common, and what tradeoffs do they make between different values such as
equality and freedom? And without accepting that all differences have to be negoti-
ated to some sort of consensus in order to preserve democracy, what do the theory
and practice of civil society have to say about the mediating effects of the associa-
tional ecosystems described in brief above?
Section IV explores these questions through contributions that deal with what
one might call the contested core values of civil society such as civility, diversity,
and equality, and through the ambiguous terrain of social capital, religion, and spir-
ituality, where normative questions are especially signicant. These values are core
to the notion of civil society because without some level of agreement on and
attachment to them, collective action, associational life, and processes of participa-
tion and deliberation are unlikely to produce the results that theory predicts. For
example, large-scale inequality or discrimination will privilege some interests and
agendas over others and distort the public sphere. However, these core values will
also be contested, both in their own meaning and in the weight that different groups
attach to them. In some normative critiques of civil society, examples such as the
maa and Al-Qaeda are used to prove this point, but they offer little of use to the
debate because they are so extremeclose to the forms of civil society in some
senses but closer to straightforward criminal, military, or paramilitary activities that
work against even the broadest interpretation of these core norms.
Of more interest are the normative differences that exist between ordinary
associations of various kinds, which are the inevitable result of the diversity that
civil society is supposed to encourage and protect. These variations are rooted not
only in culture, faith, and ideology, but in much deeper social differences such as
gender and ethnicity, which color ideas about civil society itself in more fundamen-
tal ways. Hilde Coff and Catherine Bolzendahl explore the impact of such differ-
ences through the prism of gender in chapter 20. However, even these deep-rooted
10 introduction
differences pose no threat to the utility or integrity of civil society thinking, so long
as it embraces the theory of the public sphere.
4. The Spaces of Civil Society

A strong tradition of civil society thinking emphasizes the spaces in which citizens
engage with one another and with the institutions of the state and the market, rather
than the forms or the norms of civil society in and of themselves. This tradition is
less visible in the discourse of most politicians and funders, perhaps because it leads
to fewer immediate avenues for action beyond support for the independent media
and conict resolution projects, but it is critical to the utility of civil society as a con-
ceptual frame, particularly because it offers a mechanism by which differences
between associations and their agendas can be held and, in some cases, sorted
through, to create a new sense of the public interesta new publicthat is strong
enough to break through the logjam of embedded power relations and politics.
Anchored in Antonio Gramscis thinking about civil society as a site for the develop-
ment of hegemony and contestation, in John Deweys philosophy of pragmatic pub-
lic engagement and deliberation, and in Jrgen Habermass theory of the public
sphere, this approach puts the spotlight on the processes of citizen participation
which do so much to determine outcomes, and on the structural conditions which
frame, expand, or contract them for different groups at different times. Indeed, with-
out the insights and practical possibilities offered by the public sphere, civil society
would signify little more than a disaggregated collection of activities and beliefs.
This last point is especially important, because it refocuses our attention away
from micro-level studies of, and support for, individual associations, towards the
macro-level issues that funders, policy makers and even some academics often
ignore when they think about civil society and its effects. These macro-level issues
such as insecurity, inequality, factionalism, the structure of communications, and
the extent of civil and political libertiesshape the ability of any population to
activate their citizenship through public processes; to undertake projects of public
work together, as Harry Boyte puts it in chapter 26; and to engage with each other
across the lines of difference in order to fashion alliances, networks, and social
movements strong enough to exert sufcient pressure for reforms in public policy
and the market. Section V explores the forces that strengthen and erode these public
spaces and the processes they contain, through which citizens engage with each
other, argue and deliberate about the issues of the day, build consensus around the
future direction of their societies, and participate in democracy, governance, and
dialogic politics.
In modern, market-based societies, threats to the public sphere come from many
different sources, though all are related in some way to the continued privatization
and commercialization of human activity from which civil society is far from
immunethis being part of the general decline of the public in every sphere of life
that characterizes the course of contemporary capitalism (Marquand 2004). Once
seen as a counterweight to these threats, the distinctive forms and norms of voluntary
associations and of philanthropy are being increasingly submerged within the market
itself, as business principles are used to promote more effective performance, usu-
ally in terms of service provision by not-for-prot groups. The hyper-individualism
that characterizes the marketplace offers no support for collective action or processes
of public work, and provides nothing to hold communities together in the face of
increasing economic and social stress. Rising levels of insecurity, risk, and inequality
make civic participation much more difcult and demanding, further skewing the
public sphere towards the interests of elites. Secondary and higher education policies
favor a narrow band of technical skills rather than broader capacities for civic knowl-
edge, as Peter Levine puts it in chapter 29, thereby eroding the ability of ordinary
people to make their voices heard. And despite the rhetoric of ofcial support for civil
society and public-private partnership, government attitudes in most countries con-
tinue to veer from social engineering to straightforward repression, especially with
regard to large-scale citizen mobilization, advocacy, and protest.
Of course, there are also opportunities for greater engagement in the public
sphere as a result of new information technologies, community media, public jour-
nalism, and the new forms of civil society organizing that are being developed
around these innovations. Attitudes towards these innovations vary from wild opti-
mism to undue pessimism, with the truth lying somewhere in between, but even the
most successful nd it difcult to reverse the structural inequalities of the public
sphere, especially because so much new communication is virtual rather than face-
to-face, and may therefore be less effective as a tool for confronting the raw realities
of politics and power and for reshapingas opposed to reinforcingexisting norms
and values among communities of interest. The cyber-optimists that Roberta Lentz
describes in chapter 27 may disagree, but the balance sheet of the public sphere in
most countries leans more heavily towards the losses than the gains, imperiling the
ability of public spaces to promote democratic engagement and consensus-building
and placing a question mark over civil societys ultimate achievements.
5. The Achievements of Civil Society

Each of these theoretical approaches to the forms, norms, and spaces of civil society
has much to offer, but it is the achievements of civil society that are most important,
and understanding those achievements rests on combining insights from all these
different schools of thought in each particular setting. How do the structures of
associational life and the dynamics of the public sphere help or hinder the achieve-
ment of good society goals? This is the most important question in the civil soci-
ety debate, and also the least exploredperhaps because it is so complex, refusing
12 introduction
to yield any easy answers or straightforward policy prescriptions. All the contribu-
tors to this handbook struggle with this question, and unsurprisingly they end up
in very different places. But posing the question in this way already helps to move
the conversation away from two responses that have bedeviled the debate thus far.
The rst is a rigid adherence to one of these approaches to the exclusion of the oth-
ers, and the second is a tendency to tie each approach together in universal terms,
prompting scholars and policy makers to overgeneralize in their conclusionsmost
commonly, the conclusion that building more civil society organizations will
automatically cement positive social norms and practices, thereby contributing in
a similarly linear fashion to the deepening of democracy, the eradication of poverty,
and the achievement of other macro-social goals.
This conclusion is not, of course, completely incorrect, but when one exam-
ines how democracy has actually been deepened, poverty reduced, peace restored
or maintained, and power relations and market economies transformedas the
contributors to section VI all attempt to doit is clear that civil society is only
one of many forces at work, and that it has often been a progenitor of these prob-
lems as well as a contributor to their resolution. In unpicking these complicated
patterns of cause and effect, all the richness and diversity of civil society thinking
must be brought to bear on the analysis. Understanding the forms of civil society
helps to illumine which kinds of collective action are most important around
specic issues and their contexts, and where gaps or disconnects in the associa-
tional ecosystem may require attention. For example, evidence from Bangladesh
suggests that the growth of service-providing NGOs has extended access to health,
education, and economic services among the poor but has failed to achieve any
signicant impact on social mobilization or political empowermentareas which
are fundamental to large-scale, long-term progress (Kabeer, Mahmud, and Castro
2010). Understanding the norms of civil society takes us on a journey into just
these areas, penetrating more deeply into the forces that drive social change such
as the values, beliefs, and ideologies that exert their inuence beneath the surface
of citizen action and underpin the success or failure of social movements and
other attempts to shift the rules of the game. And understanding the spaces of civil
society is vital if we are to get to grips with the tasks of debate and consensus-
building around these norms, and of contesting and reshaping the power rela-
tions that ultimately determine the success of social action. When the analysis of
forms, norms, and spaces is incorporated into a single, integrated framework,
new light can be shed on civil societys achievements even in the most compli-
cated and difcult of circumstances. Seen in this way, civil society is simultane-
ously a goal to aim for, a means of achieving it, and a framework for engaging
with each other about ends and means.
If this is true, than the practical task of nurturing or encouraging civil society
becomes much more complex, way beyond the usual agenda of organizational
development and support for greater citizen participation. Therefore it is tting
that this handbook closes with three contributions in section VII that look at the
record of efforts to promote civil society through various forms of philanthropy
and foreign aid, a task which has occupied the attention of many donor agencies
especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The verdict of these authors is somewhat
pessimistic, largely because foundations and other funders have mis-specied the
tasks involved and exaggerated their potential inuence. Paradoxically, civil society
may be nurtured most effectively when donors do less, not more, stepping back to
allow citizens themselves to dictate the agenda and evolve a variety of civil societies
to suit their contexts and concerns.
6. Conclusion
The goal of this introduction has been to lay out the basic parameters of the civil
society debate in order to help the reader situate the many different contributions
that follow in a wider context. Necessarily, this has involved abandoning any one
particular understanding, interpretation, or point of view, beyond the idea that
civil society is a composite of forms, norms, and spaces in the sense of Michael
Walzers denition of uncoerced human association between the individual and
the state. This may seem overly complex or unduly vague, but it represents a much
better starting point than framing the debate only in terms of Habermas, deToc-
queville, or any of the other icons of the civil society pantheon. Once liberated
from the idea that civil society must mean one thing in every context, it is easier
to engender a wide-ranging conversation about the core elements of this idea as
well as its contested peripheries, while still relating theory to practice in action-
able ways.
There is unlikely to be a specic endpoint or winner in the civil society debate,
because the concept of civil society is continually being reshaped and reinterpreted
by new actors in new contextsyet the idea that voluntary collective action can
inuence the world for the better is unlikely to dissipate or be defeated. Many dif-
ferent varieties of civil society will be created in this way in the future, containing
hybrid organizational forms, norms which may depart from traditional notions of
cooperation and solidarity, and spaces which are occupied by a wider range of cross-
sector partnerships and alliances. Scholars must bring to bear the widest possible
array of tools and approaches to interpret the costs and benets of these changes
free, as far as is humanly possible, from ethnocentric and other assumptions. This
task is likely to be framed by increasing pressures from governments, businesses,
and others to redene the conventional roles, rights, and responsibilities of civil
society associations, the public sphere, and their associated values. And these pres-
sures will test and reshape the practice of citizen action in service to the good soci-
ety in both positive and negative ways that are sure to have important implications
for civil society theory. I hope that the Oxford Handbook of Civil Society will help
readers of all persuasions to chart a course through these uncertain waters with
greater understanding, insight, and success.
14 introduction
NOTE
1. Europe Turns Ear Toward Voice of the People, by S. Daley and S. Castle, New York
Times July 22, 2010.
REFERENCES
Edwards, M. 2009. Civil Society. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.

. 2010. Small Change: Why Business Wont Save the World. San Francisco:
Berrett-Koehler.
Kabeer, N., S. Mahmud, and J. Castro. 2010. NGO Strategies and the Challenge of
Development and Democracy in Bangladesh. Institute for Development Studies
Working Paper 343. Brighton Institute for Development Studies.
Marquand, D. The Decline of the Public. 2004. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Polanyi, M. [1944] 2001. The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press.
Putnam, R. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press.
. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York:
Simon & Schuster.
Walzer, M. 1998. The Idea of Civil Society: A Path to Social Reconstruction, in
E. J. Dionne (ed.) Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America.
Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
chapter 2
THE HISTORY OF CIVIL

SOCIETY IDEAS
john ehrenberg
Greek and Roman thinkers began talking about civil society as part of a more gen-
eral attempt to establish a geometry of human relations. Their tendency to privilege
political matters drove them to think of civility as an orientation toward the com-
mon good and the requirements of effective citizenship rather than as a matter of
domestic relations or good manners, a trend that culminated in the classical identi-
cation of civil society with the political commonwealth. At the same time, a recog-
nition that life is lived in different spheres that have their own internal logic drove
toward a more nuanced approach that made possible a recognition of social com-
plexity and the limits of political life.
1. Civil Society as the Organized

Commonwealth
Platos desire to organize an invariant ethical center for public life tended to sub-
sume private affairs to the requirements of civic health and moral renewal. His
afnity for a unitary community made him suspicious of particular interests and
domestic affairs, and his understanding of civil society was dened by his search
for the rst principles that would frame the communitys moral life. He estab-
lished the general categories which could assist in an analysis of the particular, but
it was left to his greatest student, Aristotle, to craft an understanding of civil soci-
ety that respected the multiple spheres in which life is lived even as it retained the
16 introduction
dedication to a comprehensive political association that dened the moral life of

its members.
Aristotle understood that humans live in different spheres, all of which contrib-
ute to moral development and political stability. Platos notion of the Good iden-
tied that which is worthy of pursuit for its own sake, but Aristotle knew that habits
and preferences limited the sweep of grand plans for moral regeneration. Having
moved away from his teachers orientation toward unitary explanations, he devel-
oped a notion of civil society based on a respect for variation that also expressed a
desire for comprehensiveness. If less developed processes have their own logic, it is
also true that they derive their meaning from their relation to the more developed
wholes to which they contribute and which frame their possibilities. Civil society
receives its most general meaning in the political community but Aristotle knew
that individuals act for particular reasons and that subsidiary levels of organization
contribute to the welfare of the whole. If the polis is the broadest of all human asso-
ciations because it alone exists for the sake of the good life, it is no less true that
the spheres of intimacy, production, and nature are spheres of moral action. Their
range is restricted and their effects conditioned by inequality, dependence, and
necessity, but they help set the conditions for the full realization of human potential
and share in the ethical content of the polis.
But it is the political spheres deliberation, self-rule, and mutual recognition
that dened Aristotles civil societyan emphasis that reected the embedded
nature of subordinate spheres and the material limits that made impossible the
appearance of a distinct arena of self-interested economic life. Aristotles famous
suspicion of untrammeled economic affairs, a moral aversion that characterized all
Christian thought during the Middle Ages, fortied his sense that civil society was
rooted in the aristocratic, face-to-face interactions of friends whose leisurely benev-
olence drove their discovery and articulation of the public good. Animated by
informed debate and populated by a broad middle class, Aristotles civil society was
constituted by the life of noble action.
For all its limits, Aristotles recognition that a polis is a union of unlike elements
implied that there is no single vision of excellence that is common to all. If Plato
sought an undifferentiated unity that would always generate a given course of
action, Aristotles suggestion that different virtues are appropriate to different situ-
ations would prove to be his lasting contribution to theories of civil society. But
Aristotles dictum that only politics could provide the full measure of possibilities
for moral action and the Good Life should not be forgotten. The common interest
can be grasped with relative precision, and Aristotles celebrated classication of
states aimed at a moderate constitutional order that could protect public action
even as it recognized that civil societies are composed of different families, classes,
occupations, circumstances of birth, and orders of merit. Aristotles preference for a
mixed constitution expressed his recognition that plurality was the foundation of
unity. He was sure that a state whose structure took account of subordinate spheres
would enhance the deliberative life of citizenship conditioned life in subordinate
spheres.
the history of civil society ideas 17
The slow decline and eventual disappearance of the independent city-states that
had nurtured Plato and Aristotle encouraged the Roman claim that a universal
empire could transcend Greek parochialism. An integrated notion of a world com-
munity gave rise to the late Stoic ideal of a universal civil society organized by reason.
As permanent crisis and instability marked the transition to empire, Cicero sought
to rescue civic virtue by rooting justice in a conception of law-governed nature.
Equally hostile to self-serving aristocratic corruption and grasping popular move-
ments, he tried to develop a defense of civil society that was rooted in natural law and
conditioned the res publica, the peoples possession. Civil society was now an orga-
nization of public power that made civilization possible, and justice was its organiz-
ing principle. It rested on the universal human capacity to share in the right reason
that is consonant with nature, exists independently of human contingency, and
orders the universe. The requirements of a politically constituted commonwealth
would continue to drive private pursuits toward the public by limiting the private
spheres disintegrative tendencies. Reason and right thinking were indispensable to
civic health but effective institutions animated by republican ideals were indispens-
able to the never-ending struggle against the impulse to seek private advantage.
Ciceros conviction that Aristotles mixed constitution could protect particular
differences while organizing the common good marked his chief contribution to
medieval constitutionalism and to Enlightenment notions of civil society. In the
shorter run, his notion of the common good envisaged a civil society that rested on
the peasant-soldiers who defended the republic against domestic exploitation and
foreign threat. Even as the empires universal aspirations claimed to represent a
nality and universality to which alternative systems of private and public life could
not pretend, the Roman notion of a res publica soon implied a res privata as a cor-
relative sphere. Constituted by family and property and protected by a network of
rights, it marked the area of intimate associations and particular interests. Private
law regulated the relations between individuals, provided legal denition to the
family and to property, and established a legally recognized zone of domestic life.
The later distinction between private persons and public citizens provided the back-
ground for the truism that Roman law stopped at the households doorstep. The
republican notion of civil society as a sphere of property, reason, justice, and pri-
vacy continued to seek a universal and public understanding of citizenship even as
it recognized a powerful private center of gravity. Even if the empire nally proved
unable to protect Rome, classical notions of civil society continued the effort to
rescue mankind from barbarism and secure for it the benets of a politically orga-
nized civilization.
The Roman Empire was gradually succeeded by a centralized state backed by the
Byzantine Church in Constantinople and a multiplicity of tribally based territorial
kingdoms in the West. If the universal empire now existed in memory, it was
Christianity that supplied the West with whatever social and ideological unity it had
for a millennium following the fall of Rome. It did so by providing a basis for a com-
mon spiritual fellowship and by articulating a consistent theory of the state and civil
society as two mutually dened elements of an integrated Christian Commonwealth.
18 introduction
Religion had been subordinated to the requirements of the political order in Greece
and Rome, but it assumed a stronger independent standing in the more decentralized
environment of the Middle Ages. Augustines powerful attack on the classical ideal of
self-sufciency located dependence at the center of politics, theology, and history.
Theories of universal knowledge and universal commonwealths claimed to organize
the whole of public and private life in a single comprehensive totality, and an increas-
ingly centralized Church provided the legitimacy for state structures and political
authority. But the development of broader markets, stronger kings, and more asser-
tive local bodies made it increasingly difcult to maintain an overarching framework
within which civil society could be understood. In the end, the Churchs ecclesiastical
theory could not withstand the disintegrative forces of individual interest, the sanctity
of the conscience, or the calculations of opportunistic princes. As the Christian
Commonwealths traditional notion of two spheres and two powers collapsed before
the logic of undivided sovereignty owing from a single point of power, it became
impossible for an avowedly religious authority to organize the whole of public life.
Religions long retreat to the sphere of private belief meant that the spiritual truths
proclaimed, guarded, and advanced by the Church ceased to have any compelling
public force apart from the states organizing and coercive power. By the end of the
Middle Ages, a more secular conception of politics was beginning to develop, accom-
panied by a notion of civil society that was now understood in economic terms.
2. The Transition to Modernity

Niccolo Machiavelli was unable to theorize civil society outside the traditional cate-
gories of Roman republicanism, but his secular economy of power anticipated the
appearance of the interest-bearing individual that would form the core for the bour-
geois understanding of civil society articulated by John Locke and Adam Smith. In
the meantime, it was important to learn from Rome. If political power held human
affairs together, then the mixed constitution would protect the vibrant civic life that
could protect the republic, ensure stability, and organize a long-lasting politics. Civic
institutions, a vigorous public life, creative leadership, and good laws can mitigate
the inevitable disputes that arise from class conict and the strivings for individual
advantage. Only a mixed constitution that reected the organization of society could
preserve the autonomy of the part and safeguard the integrity of the whole.
Thomas Hobbes wasnt so sure. Obsessed by the constant threat of civil war and
barbarism, he was convinced that only a single point of undivided sovereign power
could constitute civil society and make it possible for his calculating individual to
live his life free of mortal danger. In a world that was being dened by the religious
claims of the individual conscience and the pursuit of private interest, only state
power can make civilization possible. Domestic peace required the presence of the
articial man who made it possible for real men to construct a human life free of
the constant threat of annihilation. Equally alarmed by the English Revolution and
the Protestant Reformation, Hobbes sought refuge in a state that was coterminous
with a civil society now conceived as the arena in which interest-bearing individuals
pursued their private goals. If the natural condition of mankind feeds the desire
of power after power in an environment of equal vulnerability and pervasive inse-
curity, then nothing is possible until the threat of endless war is brought under
control. This requires a common power that will enforce standards of behavior
and make it possible for people to go about their business in peace. If people can
safely anticipate that others will control themselves, then all can surrender their
propensity to act as if they are the only people in the world. If they can live with a
measure of assurance that they will be safe, they can make the calculation that a
mutual and universal transfer of rights is in everyones interest.
The sword stands behind the original agreement to leave the chaos of nature,
and it is this common commitment to public power that makes civilization possi-
ble. It brings industry, agriculture, justice, navigation, science, morality, and culture
into human history. Hobbess civil society is made possible by sovereign power, is
constituted by politics, and cannot be distinguished from the state. Inhabited by
individuals who share a desire for the material, cultural, and moral benets of civil
society, it requires a coercive mechanism that can compel isolated, fearful, and com-
petitive individuals to act as if they trusted one another.
For all his emphasis on the need for a single source of sovereign power, Hobbes
knew that economic activity, science, and arts and letters require respect for the
private realm of individual desire and autonomy. But even as he made it clear that
civil society existed at the pleasure of the sovereign, he was equally sure that it was a
recognizable sphere of self-interested activity with which the state need not inter-
fere unless civic order was threatened. Even if he was unwilling to invest the private
sphere with the moral content or economic creativity that would characterize Locke,
the distinction that he drew between public political power and the private arena of
desire marked an important contribution to modern theories of the state and of
civil society.
Hobbes marked an endand a beginning. European society would continue to
fracture, and the spread of markets accompanied the development of modern forms
of centralized and bureaucratic political organization. As the arguments for an auton-
omous and protected economic sphere began to gain traction, notions of princely
power and classical republicanism yielded to the cold logic of self-interest. It would
not be long before civil society would be dened in distinctly bourgeois terms.
3. The Civil Society of Economic Man

Locke announced the appearance of a modern theory of civil society. Hobbes didnt
have to rely on a powerful state to protect civil society, Locke suggested, since all the
20 introduction
preconditions for prosperity and peace were present in the state of nature. Our
natural condition is one of freedom, sociability, and reason, and the collective deci-
sion to establish a disinterested authority to adjudicate disputes does nothing more
than address the inconvenience occasioned by the temptation to use the collective
power of the community to advance oneself. Lockes resident of civil society is an
economic person rst and foremost; the state exists to protect the rights of acquisi-
tion and accumulation that were already present and lacked only an effective
enforcement mechanism. The celebrated rule of law is designed to protect and
structure the economic activity of the self-interested members of civil society.
Drawing on Lockes work and Adam Fergusons moral economy, Smith expressed
the bourgeois condence that the laws of economics made it possible to organize
civil society around individual advantage while bringing the blessings of civilization
to everyone. The material processes of social life were replacing the political com-
munity and sovereign power as the constitutive forces of civil society.
Hobbes had privileged politics in the transition from barbarism to civilization,
but Locke was sure that economic forces could organize civil society if allowed to
function in conditions of freedom, if structured by the rule of law, and if protected
by a state with limited coercive power. Citizenship could now be based on property,
and Lockes announcement that the state existed to protect a set of prepolitical nat-
ural rights took theories of civil society into new territory. Locke agreed that politi-
cal power organized civilization in the broad sense, but he wanted to rest civil society
on a stronger foundation than an understanding of the common good. The priority
that he accorded to private interests illustrated liberalisms suggestion that it is the
creation, accumulation, and use of wealth that is really important. A limited state
and the rule of law would now make it possible for rights-bearing individuals to
pursue their interests without being forced to kill each other. The state and the
economy were separating out from the wider social organism, and the gradual dis-
appearance of the embedded economy meant that political power could now be
theoretically distinguished from the production, accumulation, and distribution of
wealth. If Locke was correct and property was both a natural right and a condition
for moral independence and personal autonomy, then it should be possible to
develop an understanding of civil society that would reserve pride of place to eco-
nomic laws and processes.
It was Smith who rst articulated a fully developed bourgeois theory of civil
society. Economic processes now constitute the anatomy of civilized life, and Smiths
celebrated attack on the political regulation of economic affairs anticipated modern
conceptions of civil society as a sphere of private striving that stands apart from the
state. Smith didnt ignore public matters, suggesting that political authority is nec-
essary to provide for defense, organize the rule of law, and provide public goods that
cannot produce a prot for private investors. But The Wealth of Nations is organized
around the proposition that civil society is organized by economic processes. Resting
as they do on the division of labor, markets allow individuals to multiply and
develop their particular skills and apply their inclinations in a way that fosters
mutual dependenceparticularly in conditions where they do not mean to do so.
The formal expression of the law of unanticipated consequences, civil society

transforms the self-interested exchanges of free men into a mutually benecial civi-
lized life for all through the operations of an invisible hand that acts behind our
backs to produce results that we do not intend. Contract theory was unnecessary,
replaced by Smiths assurance that a natural propensity to truck, barter, and
exchange one thing for another was the real foundation of civil society.
Smith shared Lockes sentiment that the activity of people in markets, rather
than in politics, is the real glue of civil society. The states formal separation from
the economy was more apparent than real, but Smiths break with mercantilism
signaled that close public supervision was no longer necessary to organize and pro-
tect civil society. He did have some some reservations about the social price that
market-induced inequality would demand, but it fell to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel and Karl Marx to generate a new theory of civil society that would more fully
take account of modernitys economics and politics.
4. Beyond Civil Society

Hegel, along with Immanuel Kant, shared Adam Smiths view that civil society was
organized and constituted by economic processes, but they werent as condent that
the market would be able to translate the chaos of private desire into the common
good. Drawing considerable moral force from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Kant sought
to base civil society on an intrinsic sense of moral duty that unites all humans, but
he also wanted to move past the Scots nave assumption of innate moral senti-
ments. His claim that civilization requires universal categories of right that are
accessible to all sought to derive a minimal universal ethic appropriate to people
who are fully self-governing in moral affairs. If rules are requirements that people
impose on themselves, then the path from dependence to autonomy is the path
toward freedom. But political institutions and the rule of law can make possible a
civil society that can generate universal moral principles, and that is why Kants civil
society rests on a law-governed foundation of coercion and obedience. A republic
committed to publicity and protective of rights could make it possible for reason to
serve the public good, free mankind from authority and dogma, and organize a civil
society of mutual recognition in a kingdom of ends.
But Kants formalism prevented him from probing deeply into the network of
material relations that constituted civil society, and Hegel took pains to demon-
strate that equality before the law, republican institutions, and civil liberties were
not enough to protect moral autonomy and freedom. Conscious control of indi-
vidual and collective lives requires action in accordance with the requirements of
reason. Freedom is now a determinate structure of interactions in the world and the
three spheres of social lifethe family, civil society, and the stateare different
structures of ethical development, separate and related moments of freedom.
22 introduction
Civil society transcends the familys moral content by moving beyond the ties
of sentiment and loyalty that constitute domestic institutions but suppress differ-
ence and individuality. The rst stirrings of independent consciousness precipitate
the ethical moment of civil society. Its foundation in subjectivity, property, compe-
tition, and particularity means that its inhabitants act with their own interests in
mind and are concerned with the satisfaction of their own needs. Hegel had read his
political economy. The paradox of his civil society is that self-serving individuals
behave selshly and instrumentally toward each other but cannot help satisfying
one anothers needs and advancing their mutual interests in the process. Civil soci-
ety is a moment in moral freedom, but is a limited and dangerous moment because
it drives toward making itself the only determination for social life. Hegel shared
philosophys long suspicion of untrammeled economic activity. This is what led
him to look to the universal state to transcend the limits of the system of needs.
Like Smith, Hegel knew that bourgeois civil society constantly generated
inequality, illustrating the paradoxical motion from choice, self-interest, and
autonomy to isolation, dependence, and subservience. In the end civil society is
an alienated, unfree and unjust sphere where autonomy and freedom can no lon-
ger sufce to constitute a moral life worthy of human habitation and ethical
self-determination. Poverty and inequality signal that Kant was wrong, Hegel
announced. Civil society cannot overcome nature because freedom requires more
than liberation from the constraints of feudalism.
Marx transformed Hegels theory of the state into a critique of civil society and
of the bourgeois economic order that sustained it. Drawing on the British political
economists, Hegel had discovered that civil society was constituted by bourgeois
class relations and increasingly characterized by instability, pauperism, and moral
degradation. He looked to the universal state to transcend civil societys particular-
ism in a more comprehensive moment of liberation, but Marxs early work led him
to conclude that Hegels state was a false universal that could not be the nal moment
in human freedom. Hegels idealism had blinded him. He was right that the great
bourgeois revolutions had freed the state from the formal constraints of civil society,
but he had failed to appreciate the implications of their freeing civil society from the
state. If public life now functioned in formal separation from feudal determinations
of property, religion, class, and the like, it was no less true that property, religion, and
class were now free to develop in formal isolation from political determinations and
constraints. Their hold on people had not been weakened by all the genuine advances
of the great anti-feudal revolutions; as the United States revealed, they had been
strengthened. The American constitution had insisted upon the formal separation of
church from state as a condition for strengthening religion and protecting it from
political interference. The paradoxical result was that the United States was simulta-
neously the country that was most formally free from the political inuence of reli-
gion, but was also the most deeply religious in matters of belief.
Marxs discovery that civil society itself had to be democratized is what carried
him beyond Hegelindeed, beyond all previous conceptions. His extension of
emancipation from politics to economics, from the state to civil society, from the
formal to the substantial, constitutes his most important contribution to theories

of civil society. Hegel had theorized the state as freedom from the antagonisms and
limits of civil society, but Marx criticized the state as part of a more general cri-
tique of the civil society on which it rested. The new understanding required tran-
scending civil society as such by uprooting its material base in private property.
This was a crucial step in the development of modern democratic and socialist
thought, for it led directly to the discovery of the proletariat as the alternative to
Hegels state. Hegel had thought that civil society could be transcended from the
outside. Marx looked at the constitutive processes of civil society itself and found
the universal class there, in the person of the property-less proletariat. Even so, he
was as much an enemy of the bourgeois state as of bourgeois civil society and never
harbored any illusions that human freedom would be served by merely strength-
ening the former at the expense of the latter. When he hailed the Paris Commune
as the germ of a communist society, he celebrated its assault on bourgeois civil
society as enthusiastically as its break with bourgeois political understandings and
institutions. Democratizing civil society requires abolishing it and moving toward
an association that transcends the chaos, antagonism, inequality, and arbitrari-
ness of market society. Liberalism developed a theory of civil society because it
wanted to democratize the state. Marxism developed a theory of the state because
it wanted to democratize civil society. The twists and turns of contemporary his-
tory would bring them face-to-face in Eastern Europe.
5. Civil Society and Associations

The roots of the contemporary interest in civil society lie in the contention of some
dissident East European intellectuals during the 1980s that communisms crisis
could only be understood as a revolt of civil society against the state. Driven by the
central socialist desire to transform the conditions of material life, they said, a
bureaucratized and grasping state apparatus relentlessly interfered with society and
repeatedly proved itself immune to democratic initiative or control. A sustained
criticism of Marxisms supposed lack of limits, its tendency to politicize everything,
its suspicion of popular democracy, and its drive to direct, suppress, or absorb all
spontaneous activity originating in civil society evolved into a deep theoretical hos-
tility to the state. This position found a powerful echo in the West, where a right-
wing attack on the welfare state was beginning to develop. As is often the case in
conservative periods, Alexis de Tocqueville was suddenly in favor.
A critic of the centralizing French monarchy, the baron de Montesquieu had
drawn on Aristotle and Cicero as he located intermediate bodies at the heart of his
aristocratic theory of civil society. Edmund Burke shared his fear of centralized
leveling political power, and his famous attack on the French Revolution was orga-
nized around a defense of local privilege and inequality. But it was Tocquevilles
24 introduction
famous claim that voluntary activity connected individualistic, self-serving

Americans to the common good that proved particularly powerful. Worried about
the reach of a democratic state in an egalitarian society, Tocqueville sought to pre-
serve local privilege and nurture traditions of self-government. He was condent
that the Americans had learned to defend liberty without surrendering to demo-
cratic excess precisely because their interests tended to be narrow and parochial.
A vibrant culture of local activity contrasted favorably with Europeans love of rou-
tine, uniformity, and moderation. Echoing James Madison, he hoped that civil soci-
ety would serve liberty by diluting the inuence of any single interest, weakening
the majority, and guarding against excess. Equality, localism, and materialism could
coexist in Tocquevilles expanded notion of civil society as localism, voluntarism,
and association. In an age when democracy and egalitarianism could threaten lib-
erty, Tocqueville looked to civil society to protect freedom with inequality.
Tocquevilles assurance that American society was characterized by widespread
equality let him avoid the problem that had proven so important to Hegel, Marx, and
others: how inequality of condition might inhibit voluntary activity for those with
neither the time nor the resources to spend on it. Under such conditions, civil society
becomes a sphere of self-reinforcing inequality and privilege. It is not clear that
Tocqueville was right about American equality when he visited, but there is no doubt
that contemporary conditions call some of his fundamental assumptions into ques-
tion. The United States is the most unequal advanced nation on earth, and easy
assertions that localism and voluntarism provide formally equal citizens with the
opportunity to better their condition and inuence public life have yielded to more
sober reections about how civil society may reinforce privilege, serve inequality,
and damage democracy. Tocquevilles admiration for the New England town meet-
ing notwithstanding, there is abundant evidence that small and intimate organiza-
tions stie divisive conict, reinforce existing inequalities, and defer to the leadership
of the already powerful. There is no convincing evidence that the local and the inti-
mate are necessarily more democratic just because they are small. Indeed, it is entirely
possible that the real threat to equality and democracy comes from private power
and that the only way to mitigate this threat is through broad, comprehensive regula-
tion and redistributionexactly the sort of politically driven interference against
which much of the contemporary fascination with civil society ranges itself.
Thirty years of conservative hegemony have been built on a rhetorical hostility
to the state and a celebration of the local. Now civil society is supposed to revive
communities, train citizens, build habits of cooperation, provide an alternative to
bureaucratic meddling, and reinvigorate public lifeall this in an era of small gov-
ernment and parochial politics. This simplistic view has hidden the state-led redis-
tribution of wealth through regressive scal and monetary policies, deregulation,
and privatization. It also obscures the presence of a different and no less authenti-
cally American tradition of broad state action to address the inequalities of civil
societya view that fed important periods of democratic reform from the
Progressive Era through the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement and the
Great Society. Barack Obamas election might signal a changed orientation, but a
narrowed sense of public purpose and a restricted sense of political possibilities

continue to bedevil efforts to democratize economic life. It is important to under-
stand what is at stake. Understanding civil society as a nonstate, nonmarket sphere
of voluntary activity cannot help us make distinctions between bowling leagues and
neighborhood associations on the one hand, and Greenpeace, the National
Organization of Women, and the White Citizens Council on the other. It is not
enough to say that democracy requires a strengthened civil society and leave it at
that. As important as they are, local activity, voluntary organizations, and good
manners cannot protect equality or advance democracy in conditions of historic
inequality and gigantic centers of private power. They cannot take on the historic
concentrations of wealth and privilege that dominate contemporary life and distort
democracy. Now as before, there is no substitute for broad, sustained, and demo-
cratic political action.
REFERENCES
Cohen, J. and Arato, A. 1994. Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press.
Eberle, D. 2000. The Essential Civil Society Reader: The Classic Essays. Lanham, Md.:
Rowman and Littleeld.
Edwards, M. Civil Society. 2009 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ehrenberg, J. 1999. Civil Society: The Critical History of an Idea. New York: NYU Press.
Habermas, J. 1989. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a
Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Kaldor, M. 2003. Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Keane, J. (ed.) 1988. Democracy and the State: New European Perspectives. London: Verso.
Mansbridge, J. 1983. Beyond Adversary Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McConnell, G. 1966. Private Power and American Democracy. New York: Knopf.
Putnam, R. 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
New York: Simon & Schuster.
Sandel, M. 1998. Democracys Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Verba, S., Schlozman, K.L. and Brady, H. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in
American Politics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
part ii
THE FORMS OF CIVIL

SOCIETY
chapter 3
THE NONPROFIT SECTOR
steven rathgeb smith
The role of the nonprot sector in society is on the rise throughout the world
(Salamon, Sokolowski and Lis 2004; Salamon 2010; Phillips and Smith 2011). In the
United States, nonprot organizations play a central role in providing key public
services, often with government funding. Widespread attention has been devoted to
the importance of faith-based and neighborhood organizations in addressing
important social problems. The administration of President Barack Obama has
established a federal Ofce of Social Innovation to support emergent nonprot
organizations with proven records of effectiveness, and in the United Kingdom,
public-private partnerships with community and nonprot involvement form a key
component of the Big Society envisaged by the political coalition between
Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties that came to power in 2010, just as
they were a decade earlier under the Third Way policy agenda of New Labor,
though the specics of policy implementation obviously vary. The European Union
has placed engagement with civil society at the heart of its pursuit of democratic
legitimacy, integration, and enlargement (European Commission 2001; Dunn 2011).
So too have many countries in transition, where legal, policy, and regulatory reforms
are linked to processes of modernization and democratization, and where civil soci-
ety organizations are establishing a stronger role as more stable democracies develop.
Even countries that have long ignored or openly repressed civil society groups are
taking steps to develop new nonprot and charity legislation. Political rhetoric
abounds, but it has also been accompanied by substantial reform in many countries.
The result has been both an expansion of and a wide variety of reforms in the non-
prot sector, especially in relation to the roles that nonprots play in service deliv-
ery. This chapter explores the place of the nonprot sector in the broader eld of
civil society, analyzes a number of different theories which aim to account for the
rise of nonprots, and highlights an emerging set of issues and dilemmas that arise
from the ways in which nonprot organizations are being positioned.
30 the forms of civil society
1. What Is the Nonprofit Sector?

A connecting thread that runs through many different denitions is that civil soci-
ety is the space of voluntary association and activity that exists in relative separation
from the state and the market (Cohen and Arato 1992; Barber 1998; Salamon,
Sokolowski, and List 2004). As noted by Putnam (1993), a vibrant civil society is
characterized by a rich mixture of voluntary groups that provide ongoing opportu-
nities for citizen engagement and participation in associational affairs, as well as
more broadly in the public policy process. Nonprot organizations (or nonprof-
its) form a specic category of associational life in civil society, and are usually
dened by their high level of formality in terms of legal registration, by the prepon-
derance of external funding in their budgets (as opposed to membership support),
and by their roles as intermediaries that sit between grassroots constituencies and
communities, and government and other agencies. Nonprots constitute an impor-
tant element in the ecosystems of civil society, but the two should not be conated.
Robert Putnams (1993; 2000) widely publicized work argued that voluntary
associations can produce cooperative social networks, or social capital, which in
turn can promote more effective government, higher levels of economic develop-
ment, and a more satised citizenry. Putnams work also calls attention to the role
of nonprot organizations in supporting civil society more broadly. The attraction
of nonprots also reects the growing worldwide interest in civic and community
service, including volunteering. In the United States, the Serve America Act of
2009 could potentially fund over 250,000 paid volunteers through the federal
Corporation for National and Community Service. In the United Kingdom, the
Home Ofce issued a white paper on police reform in 2010 that called for the
greater use of volunteers in public safety (Home Ofce 2010). More broadly, David
Cameron, who was elected as Prime Minister in the same year, made plans for
sharply increased levels of volunteering among the population to anchor his vision
of the Big Society. Overall, volunteering appears to be growing worldwide, espe-
cially among young people (McBride, et al. 2004; 2006). Most, but not all, volun-
teering occurs in the nonprot sector.
In the United States, high-prole nonprots such as Teach for America, the
Harlem Childrens Zone, and YouthBuild have received widespread attention for
their focus on outcomes and improved program performance, which, it is claimed,
distinguishes them from more traditional civil society groups. Many innovative
nonprots in the United States and elsewhere have also generated interest as a
result of their mix of nonprot and for-prot elements. These so-called social
enterprises tend to rely in part on fees or on earned income, and they actively par-
ticipate in the market economy as a way of helping the users of their programs to
advance (Alter 2010; Light 2008; Bornstein 2007; Crutcheld and Grant 2008;
Cordes and Steuerle 2009; Nicholls, chapter 7 in this volume). Outside of the
United States, similar organizations are also on the rise, including microcredit
groups such as the Grameen Bank.
the nonprofit sector 31
Global social and demographic trends are also shaping the role of the nonprot
sector, with the aging of the population in many countries creating sharply higher
levels of demand for community care programs including home care, home health,
and transitional living. Support for work opportunities for the disabled, the unem-
ployed, and the disadvantaged has led naturally to rising interest in community
living and workforce development programs, in which nonprots usually play a
central part. Indeed, except in a small number of highly repressive regimes such as
Myanmar and Cuba, the absolute size of the nonprot sector has increased signi-
cantly over the past twenty years in all parts of the world, though substantial differ-
ences exist in the relative importance and character of the sector in different
countries. For example, over 14 percent of the labor force works in the nonprot
sector in the Netherlands compared to 7.1 percent in Sweden and less than one per-
cent in Poland (Salamon, Sokolowski, and List 2004: 19). In the developing world
these variations are much wider, ranging, for example, from 1.2 million nonprot
organizations in India to between 15,000 and 20,000 in Egypt (Kienle and Chandhoke,
chapters 12 and 14 in this volume). What explains these cross-country differences?
2. Theories of the Nonprofit Sector
a. From Welfare States to Social Origins

One key reference point for understanding cross-national differences in the non-
prot sector is the literature on the development of the welfare state. In particular,
Esping-Andersen (1990) argued in his inuential book that welfare state regimes
could be classied into three different categories: liberal, corporatist, and social-
democratic. Liberal regimes include countries such as the United States, the United
Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia, and are characterized by minimal social
support from the state and extensive means-testing. Corporatist regimes include
Germany and the Netherlands and typically offer extensive social benets through
a mix of market and state mechanisms for support, with the state often working in
conjunction with market organizations such as employers. Social democratic regimes
are committed to universal benets largely provided by the state, with a deliberate
disconnect between eligibility for social benets and the market (sometimes known
as de-commodication). Countries in this category include Denmark, Sweden,
and Norway.
Esping-Andersens profoundly inuential welfare state regime typology was
based on his research into income maintenance programs such as pensions and
unemployment insurance. Relatively little attention was devoted to nonprot orga-
nizations. Salamon and Anheier (1998) addressed this gap in their social origins
theory, which draws on Esping-Andersen as well as the work of Barrington Moore
(1966). Social origins theory details four different nonprot regime types: liberal
regimes such as the United States, with low government social welfare spending and
a large nonprot sector; social democratic regimes such as the Scandinavian coun-
tries, with extensive state services and smaller numbers of service-providing non-
prot organizations; corporatist regimes such as Germany, with broad-based social
benets and a long tradition of state-supported organizations in an extensive non-
prot sector; and statist regimes such as Japan, in which the government exercises
substantial power and autonomy but rarely on behalf of lower-income groups so
that both social benets and the nonprot sector tend to be limited (Anheier and
Salamon 2006).
Hence, the key components of the social origins theory are the following: rst,
an inverse relationship between the extent of social spending and the size of the
nonprot sector; second, the critical importance of key historical moments in a
countrys history that establish specic institutional congurations that inuence
the development of the nonprot sector, including the relationship between church
and state and the role of the working class in state formation; and third, a focus on
service agencies, as opposed to sports clubs, choral societies, and other types of
largely volunteer organizations which receive little revenue from public or private
sources. Furthermore, nonprot revenue is divided into three basic categories: pri-
vate philanthropy, fees, and government funding.
Also relevant to any understanding of the historical development of the non-
prot sectors service role is the research of Jens Alber (1995), who proposed a model
and a set of propositions to explain differences in social service provision across
Europe, based on research into elder care services. Albers model identies four key
institutional variables that inuence the structure of social services: the type of reg-
ulation; the structure of nancing; the public/private mix of providers; and the reli-
gious structure of the country. Further, he links the type of providers to consumer
power. For example, German social services are dominated by large nonprot pro-
viders linked to religious institutions and receiving large-scale funding from the
state. This arrangement reects the heterogeneous religious culture of Germany
and, as a result, the reliance on large religious providers to supply social services to
different religious communities. By contrast, Denmark, Alber notes, is a religiously
homogeneous country, and therefore religiously based providers have never estab-
lished the strong presence that evolved in Germany or the Netherlands. As a conse-
quence, the expansion of health and social services in twentieth-century Denmark
was channeled into the public sector.
Understanding the relative importance of nonprot organizations within the
welfare state is of increasing signicance given the shift that is taking placeto vary-
ing degrees in different countriesfrom cash assistance to services provided by non-
prot and for-prot organizations in areas such as poverty assistance and
unemployment. In the United States, for example, the landmark welfare reform leg-
islation of 1996 led to a marked decline in cash assistance and a substantial increase
in funding for nonprot social service agencies providing an array of programs such
as workforce development (Allard 2009; Smith 2011). Similar shifts have occurred in
many other countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
Nonprot organizations are now rmly established on the front lines of social policy
implementation, and are critical to the life-chances of much of the citizenry, espe-
cially in times of acute economic crisis and high levels of unemployment.
b. The New Public Management

Perhaps one of the most important inuences in the changing size and role of the
nonprot sector has been the adoption by many countries of the New Public
Management agenda (NPM)a term that refers to the restructuring of public
management using market-oriented strategies to provide for social needs and
increase the effectiveness, efciency, and responsiveness of public services (Rhodes
1996; Hood 1991; Lynn 1998; Osborne 2006; Osborne, Mclaughlin, and Ferlie 2002).
These strategies include competitive contracting for services, public-private part-
nerships, the use of vouchers among purchasers, and the introduction of more
consumer choice. The shift to NPM has had profound effects on the size and role
of the nonprot sector. Nonprots have increasingly been funded through con-
tracts to provide vital public services, from community care to substance abuse
treatment to home health care for the elderly (Smith 2010). The restructuring of
the state has in turn drawn nonprots into greater engagement with the public
policy process, especially through intermediary associations that represent large
numbers of local organizations such as the National Council of Voluntary
Organizations (NCVO) in the United Kingdom and the Maryland Association of
Nonprots in the United States. In some countries, such as the United Kingdom
and Australia, this evolving relationship between government and the nonprot
sector has led to the adoption of formal compacts that provide a structured
forum for the discussion and resolution of mutual areas of concern (Plowden 2003;
Casey, et al. 2010).
The emphasis on citizen engagement and responsiveness within the tenets of
NPM has also spurred governments to promote the representation of neighbor-
hoods, ethnic groups, or approaches to service delivery in the policy process. As a
result, neighborhood-based and other specialized nonprots have increased sub-
stantially in many countries, and in some, such as the United States, they provide
an opportunity for citizens to participate in the governance of the services they
receive. In addition, many newer nonprot service agencies are linked to immi-
grant groups or disadvantaged populations, and they often partner with govern-
ment agencies as part of a broader approach to addressing problems such as HIV/
AIDS, affordable housing, economic development, and community care. NPM is
also closely linked to the devolution of public programs to lower levels of govern-
ment and society, a shift that has led to a more prominent role for nonprots
which are often seen to be closer to their communities. Finally, NPM is also part of
a broader movement to improve the performance and effectiveness of government.
The increased utilization of nonprots is an integral component of this effort since
they are assumed to be more innovative and effective than traditional public pro-
grams in many countries.
c. The Limitations of NPM and Theories of the Welfare State

To be sure, marked differences still exist across countries in the position of the non-
prot sector. First, it is apparent that the institutional logic of a welfare state
regimean important underlying assumption of the Esping-Anderson typology
has important and enduring effects on welfare state development and therefore on
the sectors size and positioning (see also Alber 2010). The public-private mix affects
the trajectory of the welfare state, and fundamental reforms are required to change
its funding and organizational dynamics. Despite the pressures of NPM and other
new ideas on social policy, for example, the service-providing nonprot sector in
Scandinavian countries such as Denmark and Sweden remains relatively small
(Henriksen and Bundesen 2004; Svedberg, and Olsson 2010). By contrast, the num-
ber of nonprot public charities in the United States that are tax-exempt and can
accept tax deductible contributions has more than doubled in the last fteen years
(NCCS 2010).
Second, the enormous inuence of the welfare-state regime typology has tended
to minimize the importance of nonprot organizations in other elds such as the
arts, sports and recreation, and social clubs. For example, Sweden has a small non-
prot social welfare presence but a very sizable segment of the population is engaged
in nonprot sports clubs and their activities (Norberg 2010; Lundstrom and
Wijkstrom 1997; Kuhnle and Selle 1992). And in the United Kingdom, philanthropy
has emerged in the last twenty-ve years as a key force in the world of arts and cul-
ture (Pharaoh 2010). Trade unions also tend to be excluded from consideration as
nonprot organizations because of the dominance of theories of the welfare state.
But as noted by Norberg (2010), labor unions in Sweden are one of the key forms of
voluntary participation by the citizenry. In the U.S. context, social clubs are consid-
ered to be part of civil society more broadly dened, especially as a result of Putnams
work on the importance of voluntary organizations such as choral societies in
building social capital. However, labor unions have remained largely absent from
discussions of the nonprot sector despite their tax-exempt status.
Third, the welfare state regime typology has difculty in capturing the evolving
situation of the nonprot sector in Eastern and Central Europe, Russia, and many
developing countries, whose authoritarian and semiauthoritarian regimes had
banned nonprot organizations from providing signicant services or representing
citizen interests. The advent of democracy in many of these countries has wrought
profound shifts in the position of nonprots, fueled in part by the inuence of
NPM as well as outside funding institutions including European and American
philanthropic foundations. However, many countries have wrestled with nding an
appropriate legal and regulatory framework for nonprots and a satisfactory model
for their role in society. Poland, for example, continues to debate the merits of a
German-style corporatist framework consisting of close cooperation between gov-
ernment and large umbrella nonprot organizations, as opposed to a British model
that is more reliant on private philanthropy (Krzyszkowski 2010). In Hungary, the
government has struggled to balance the goal of more efciency and accountability
with the goal of engaging nonprot organizations and civil society in the policy
process (Kuti 2011).
Overall, despite the pressure for policy convergence that stems from NPM and
other forces, each countrys institutional legacy has had a major inuence on the
role of nonprots and the relationship between government and the nonprot sec-
tor in particular. More specically, the structure of government and the system for
funding the provision of social services inuences the opportunities for nonprot
formation and affects their ongoing relationships with the state. This conclusion
builds on theories which suggest that the institutions of government inuence the
goals and priorities of private actors and organizations. In this model, nonprot
organizations are formed based on the mix of incentives they face from government
as well as other societal institutions (Pierson 2004; Smith and Lipsky 1993). As the
nonprot sector grows, it creates a supply of organizations that then affect the
implementation choices of government ofcials. Importantly, however, regime
characteristics also blur and mix with the so-called pillars of the welfare state
markets, the state, the family, and the communityso that countries such as Poland,
the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States come to rely on the interac-
tion of these pillars in surprising and increasingly complicated ways (Goodin and
Rein 2001).
3. Common Issues and Dilemmas

The growing prominence of nonprots throughout the world has raised similar
policy and management issues for government and the nonprot sector itself. First,
the economic crisis of 200810 has had profound effects on government and private
funders, although the severity of this impact varies substantially across countries. In
the United States and the United Kingdom, the crisis has produced a wave of fund-
ing cutbacks, forcing many nonprot agencies to reduce services, sometimes drasti-
cally. The severity of these cutbacks has been exacerbated by reductions in funding
from foundations and private donors. The withdrawal of foundation support from
the new democracies of Eastern and Central Europe has added to these effects.
Second, nonprots are facing increasing demands for accountability and
improved performance. Public funding programs in many countries including the
United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany now
require performance contracts which tie reimbursement for nonprots to the meet-
ing of specied indicators and results such as placement in permanent employment
(Smith and Smyth 2010; Zimmer and Smith 2010; Lyons and Dalton 2011).
Importantly for agencies receiving public funds, performance contracting can sig-
nicantly change the incentives for nonprot agencies to serve certain types of cli-
ents, and can force agencies to alter their program models in order to meet
performance targets and their accompanying payment arrangements. Overall,
government and private funders are placing much greater emphasis on evaluation
and performance measurement. Consequently, nonprots face markedly higher
expectations in terms of their transparency and levels of reporting for their pro-
grammatic and nancial operations. The push for more accountability, combined
with ongoing nancial pressures on nonprots, means that they are engaged in
complex and sometimes contradictory relationships with other agencies in their
eld. Funding cutbacks often prompt nonprots to join together to inuence public
policy, sometimes through formal coalitions and associations that represent their
interests. In some service elds, agencies have tried to promote voluntary means of
accountability and quality improvement, and cost-sharing strategies such as the
sharing of program locations and staff are attracting widespread interest, although
the actual number of nonprots engaged in these strategies is relatively small.
Nonetheless, performance contracting and the sheer numbers of nonprot
agencies in many communities encourage more competition for funding and for
clients. This trend is reinforced by the shift to a greater emphasis on client choice
and responsiveness, another ripple effect of the New Public Management (Alber
2010; Phillips and Smith 2011; Lyons and Dalton 2011). Vouchers for services such as
child care and housing are one manifestation of these changes, but the increased use
of health insurance reimbursement such as Medicaid in the United States, where
funding is tied to the client, is another reection of this trend. These policy tools tend
to be procompetitive since nonprot agencies are no longer assured of their funding
levels, unlike under previous contracting arrangements. More competition is also
abetted by the growing inroads made by for-prot service providers in many elds
that were previously dominated by nonprots, such as community care for the dis-
abled and aged, hospitals, mental health care, and substance abuse treatment (Bode
2011; Smith 2011). For example, home care was provided almost exclusively by non-
prot organizations in the United States in the 1970s; today, this eld is dominated by
for-prot providers. In Germany, commercial hospitals have essentially taken over
the public facilities of the former East Germany (Zimmer and Smith 2010). In
Australia, recent governments have actually favored for-prot organizations, result-
ing in a long-term decline in the relative service role of nonprots (Lyons and Dalton
2011). The rise of for-prots in many service elds is due to several factors: growing
demand for services such as community care; the undercapitalization of many non-
prots which erodes their ability or unwillingness to scale up to meet increased
demand; and the efciencies that can accrue to larger for-prot agencies compared
to smaller community-based organizations, especially in more routine services such
as home care. Greater competition also places pressure on nonprots to be more
commercial and market-oriented (Eikenberry and Kluver 2004; Bode 2011).
The surge in smaller, community-based nonprots in recent years in an envi-
ronment of increased competition and accountability has generated widespread
concern, and greater attention to issues of nonprot capacity, infrastructure, and
sustainability, especially among funders (Smith 2011; Ryan 2001). Many of these
newer and smaller agencies have relatively small boards and staff, lack substantial
capital, and may be highly dependent on a relatively restricted revenue base. Many
are also at a stage in their organizational development at which they need to develop
a more sustainable nancial plan. Capacity building is also vital for both govern-
ment and the nonprot sector because the changing political and funding environ-
ment demands new skills from managers that were not previously emphasized,
including negotiation and conict resolution, collaboration, outreach, openness,
and organizational development. Increasingly, nonprot agencies are part of com-
plex networks of public, nonprot, and sometimes for-prot organizations, so a
detailed knowledge of how these networks operate and can be managed is essential
if services are to be sustained and effective.
Governments can provide help with capacity building directly and indirectly by
supporting nonprots on important issues such as strategic planning, the develop-
ment of business plans, and assistance with improving board governance. Towards
this end, some countries have established formal ofces to work with nonprot
organizations. Examples include the Ofce of the Third Sector (now Civil Society)
in the United Kingdom, and the Ofce for the Community and Voluntary Sector in
New Zealand. In the United Kingdom, the formal compact between government
and the nonprot sector is properly staffed and provides a wide variety of support
services to local government and to nonprot staff and volunteers. While compacts
like these have arguably provided a structured vehicle for the discussion of impor-
tant issues, they will remain insufcient unless nonprots are skilled advocates of
citizen interests. Nonprots are valued for their potential to represent their com-
munities and provide valued feedback to policymakers on important public policy
matters. Yet many encounter serious internal and external constraints to engaging
in sustained advocacy. Many agencies worry that advocacy will create legal and
political problems, given the restrictions on advocacy that are enshrined in legisla-
tion in many countries. Service providers may worry that advocacy will have a del-
eterious effect on their relationships with government, including future funding
and regulatory decisions. Newer and smaller community organizations often lack
the resources and expertise to be effective advocates, and some nonprot agencies
such as emergency shelters or food banks may not necessarily view political activity,
or even broad civic engagement, as priorities given their missions and program
goals (see Smith and Lipsky 1993; Lewis 1999; Bass, Arons, Guinane, and Carter 2007;
Lyons and Dalton 2011).
In essence, the challenge of nonprot advocacy reects the restructuring of the
state and the consequent increase in the service role of the nonprot sector.
Inevitably, this role has created a complex relationship with government whereby
nonprots are dependent on the state for funding and worry that their advocacy
will have a deleterious effect on future support. Fiscal crises and increasingly com-
petitive environments for public and private funding tend to heighten these levels
of anxiety and lead to greater caution by nonprots in their advocacy work. In order
to tackle this problem, nonprots could usefully rethink their governance and fund-
ing models to help promote sustainability and reduce dependence so that they can
hold governments accountable for their obligation to fund key public services.
But in order to cope withand hopefully inuencethese emerging funding and
regulatory environments, nonprots will need to be more creative and innovative in

their programming, organizational structures, and their relations with other
organizations.
4. Conclusion
Social and demographic trends, state restructuring, the push for more individual
choice in public service delivery, and the advance of the New Public Management
would appear to ensure that the nonprot sector will become even more important
in the future. But these developments also create new risks and challenges for non-
prots and for society as a whole. As service providers, nonprots have complicated
relationships with the state, affecting their ability to be responsive to community
needs and act as conduits for citizen pressure. Issues of scale, capacity, and sustain-
ability pose questions about the macro-level impact of nonprot service provision,
and major differences within and across countries are likely to persist, despite pres-
sures to conform to universal roles and standards. If it is to advance civil society and
not simply substitute for the state, the nonprot sector will need to maintain a care-
ful balance between dependence and independence, and nd ways of blending ser-
vice delivery with other roles such as advocacy and community organizing.
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chapter 4
DEVELOPMENT NGOs
alan fowler
Since the mid-1940s, nongovernmental development organizations (NGDOs)

dedicated to promoting long-term economic, social, and political progress have
proliferated across the world. Some, like Oxfam and World Vision, originated
in Europe and North America to work across international borders, but have
since spawned local entities with similar names and agendas. However, most
NGDOs are located in developing countries. Over the last twenty years, their
numbers, reach, and profile have expanded dramatically. Within the framework
of international aid and development cooperation, a specific discourse has
arisen around these organizations called NGDO-ism, a discourse that gives
rise to important questions about NGDOs, civil society, and social change
(Hilhorst 2003).
This chapter traces the emergence of NGDOs from relative obscurity to a sub-
stantial presence in the international development community, a process that
became more complex over time as NGDOs were conated with a new discourse of
civil society on the one hand and challenged by a human rights perspective on the
other. Taking the long view, their history has been one of abrupt punctuations in an
otherwise mutual, but nonetheless asymmetric, adaptation between government
and NGDO practices and organizational behaviors, a process that has favored gov-
ernment and now threatens to dislodge NGDOs from their position in favor of
support to new civic actors. Reecting growing uncertainties about an emerging
world disorder, the chapter concludes by outlining some speculative future sce-
narios for NGDOs and their work.
development ngos 43
1. NGDOs and Civil Society: Clearing

the Analytic Ground
The formation of the United Nations (UN) in the aftermath of the Second World
War provided both the label and a formal starting point for what today are known
as NGOs. Alongside the General Assembly and Security Council, the new UN struc-
ture included a forumthe Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)dedicated
to debate on economic and social issues. Long prior to this event, a number of
transnational religious and charitable organizations had been working in such
elds. To enable these and similar entities to be accredited as participant-observers
of government debates at ECOSOC, forty-one were accorded consultative status as
a nonstate institutional category of a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in
1947. This label has both remained and expanded into a complex, and often per-
plexing, global discourse far beyond its origins in the United Nations.
There are two critical points to bear in mind from this brief history. First, the
formal label NGO was applied only to entities working internationally, which is
no longer the case. Many organizations that are understood and legally dened as
NGOs are domestic in their intentions and relationships. Second, whether gaining
consultative status or not, NGOs were preoccupied with social and economic issues
that, with the advent of foreign aid some fteen years later, gained the additional
attribute of being formally developmental. These factors enabled a willy-nilly
adoption by, or application of, the label NGO to entities that may or may not have
any tangible afnity with the interventions, logic, or practices of foreign aid, a prob-
lem that has led to much analytic confusion that is discussed below.
Dissatisfaction with the catch-all nature of the negative descriptor nongovern-
mental abetted a terminological evolution including private voluntary organiza-
tions (PVOs) in the United States and voluntary development organizations (VDOs)
in India; as well as nonprot organizations (NPOs), third sector organizations
(TSOs) and, more recently, civil society organizations (CSOs) worldwide. All these
terms overlap with the attributes of NGOs as originally understood. This plethora
of classications is explored by Tvedt (1998:1315) in terms of legal, nancial/eco-
nomic, functional, and structural-operational typologies. He argues for an agreed
denition that can be relied on cross-nationally. However, there remains no univer-
sal denition, nor a robust or uncontested positive characterization of what NGOs
or NGDOs are, what they do, and why they exist across the world.
Furthermore, a distinction is too seldom made between NGOs or, for that mat-
ter, NGDOs that serve third parties or external stakeholders (i.e., beneciaries, tar-
get groups, and constituencies) and those that were established to serve their
members, or to do both. By and large, however, NGDOs function as intermediaries
between resource providers and those in populations whose ill-being justies the
organizations existence (Carroll 1992; Fowler 1997, 26). Unless stated otherwise, this
positional characterization in resource channels or chains from developed to
developing countriesthe North and the Southis used throughout the discus-
sion that follows.
Also complicating matters is the thirty-year role of international aid in propa-
gating NGDOs as a policy towards recipient countries. Regimes across the South
have introduced legislation that often apply the label nongovernmental to all sorts
of civic organizational forms and purposes in order to distinguish them from for-
mal or informal enterprises and cooperatives.1 Consequently, to a disproportionate
degree, NGDO-ism prevails in ofcial thinking, public and professional discourse,
and practical imagery in terms of the interpretation of civic associations across the
world. Legislative action has also stemmed from the inltration into NGDO-ism of
pretenders with self-seeking agendas or as ways for governments to attain arms-
length control over civic actors. These motivations have given rise to a range of
pejorative acronyms such as BRINGO (Brief Case NGO), MONGO (my own NGO),
GONGO (government NGO), PONGO (Political NGO) and many more (Fowler
1977, 32).
Allied to these denitional problems are signicant levels of uncertainty about
the global numbers of NGDOs, especially given the problematic division between
NGDOs and NGOs who are not involved in development. For example, of the esti-
mated 277,000 Hobbled NGOs in Russia,2 very few are NGDOs. Uganda alone
boasted some 7,000 NGDOs in 2007 against 500 in 1992. Of Indias estimated 1 to 2
million NGOs, very few are NGDOs registered to receive foreign aid, which is a legal
requirement. Efforts at multi-country mapping of nonprot and civil society orga-
nizations are only partial in their coverage and they are not consistent in their
results, inviting caution about both classication and generalization in this arena
(Salamon et al., 1999, 2004; Heinrich and Fioramonti 2007). There are also signi-
cant uncertainties about the amount of nancial resources mobilized around
NGDOs, since the multiplicity of channels involved, incentives to under- or over-
report, and many other factors preclude the calculation of robust economic num-
bers. Estimates of NGDO funding or disbursement range from $15 to 25 billion
annually (Fowler 1997, 133136; 2000, 4), with an ever-increasing proportion from
ofcial aid allocations, accelerated by nance for post-conict reconstruction.
Moreover, there are signs of a skewed distribution of budgets and stafng. The six
largest international NGDOs (INGDOs) alone are credited with an aggregate turn-
over in 2008 of $7 billion, while employing some 110,000 staff worldwide (Ronalds
2010). The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) had an annual bud-
get in 2010 of $700 million and a staff complement of 130,000 people. Yet there are
also many thousands of small and medium-sized organizations that are legally reg-
istered as NGDOs, some relying exclusively on volunteers. Nevertheless, taking
these caveats into account, an estimate running into the hundreds of thousands of
NGDOs operating globally would not seem unreasonable.
Against this cautionary backdrop, this chapter connes itself to a composite
reading of the universe of NGDOs, understood in the following normative terms,
which in practice may not all be found in every case: NGDOs (a) are separate in
legitimacy and governance from governmental bodies; (b) acclaim and utilize the
development ngos 45
tenets of international aid as a substantive basis for their existence;3 (c) gain direct
or tax-based public support, in part because they are not established to generate
wealth for their owners; (d) operate at any or all levels of socio-political organiza-
tion from the individual, family, household, and local levels to transnational and
global concerns, presence, and relationships; and (e) are not partisan in the politics
of their endeavors. These attributes offer a lens through which the nature and evo-
lution of NGDOs and NGDO-ism can be explored in the sections that follow, start-
ing with their articles of faith.
2. A False Promise of Alternatives?

The late 1970s can be regarded as the period when NGDOs started to lose the secu-
rity of obscurity and enter the realm of recognition and embrace by the ofcial aid
system. Their entry was premised on the developmental value of being positively
different to government and its community-oriented practices. The original notion
of being alternative has been both a creed and a point of reference for dening
and assessing NGDOs, though proving to be a mixed blessing that remains to this
day (Bebbington, Hickey, and Mitlin 2008).
Throughout the 1970s, some International NGDOs (INGDOs) had been agitat-
ing to be seen and heard by the ofcial aid system (Lissner 1977). Infused by cam-
paigning for de-colonialization and agitating against military regimes, their
arguments were twofold. First, the origins of INGDOs had informed a people-
oriented approach to social change that had been honed over the years of pre- and
post-independence engagement in developing countries. This experience offered
valuable comparative advantages over government in micro, or community,
developmentarticulated, for example, in Brown and Kortens (1989) seminal
paper which spelled out for international bureaucrats what Tendler (1982) had
described as NGDO myths or articles of faith (Tvedt 1998, 128). By this she
meant self-referential premises of what NGDOs are and do which make them more
effective in soft development initiatives that revolve around people, rather than
hard technologies such as the creation of physical infrastructure. It is beyond the
scope of this chapter to list and explore these myths in detail, other than to highlight
the notions of people-centeredness, participation, and partnership as substantial
sources of their comparative social value in development work. The critical point is
that these myths and their later renements provided a functional-technical metric
against which NGDO performance was tracked and assessed throughout the 1970s
and 1980s. This optic marginalized, but could not dispel, a more political interpreta-
tion of what alternative could mean, a perspective reinvigorated by global events
that are discussed below.
Second, being and offering alternatives was not couched only in terms of opera-
tional functioning, but also in terms of bringing a different perspective and theory
of change to the table that was premised on international solidarity. Articulated

especially strongly in Latin America, this anti-dependencia view focused on how the
liberal, capitalist economic system itself caused the underdevelopment it was pur-
ported to solve (Lehmann 1986). A radically different theory of the causes of, and
remedies for, global poverty could and would inform NGDO strategy and practice,
though their actual willingness and ability to pursue such an agenda has also been
subject to dispute.
Arguments among NGDOs about what economics for development should
look like emerged at a time of signicant shifts in the domestic politics of donor
countries, loosely termed the Reagan-Thatcher era of the 1980s. Through their
dominance of multilateral institutions and bilateral agencies, the anti-big govern-
ment, pro-private sector policies of donor countries fed into changes in the foreign
aid system. Consequently, recognition of nonstate development actors like NGDOs
became an institutional imperative for foreign aid. For example, within its External
Relations Department the World Bank established an NGDO ofce in 1982. The
expansion of private aid supply channels matched an increase in demand driven
by structural adjustment policies that were exacerbating poverty. As carriers of
alternatives, how did NGDOs respond to the move towards a pro-business ideo-
logical agenda?
The answer is that NGDOs resolved the moral issues stemming from their roots
in caritas, philanthropy, and voluntarism in favor of their own economic growth
as a proxy for performance. Simply put, a caritas mentality means that a failure to
raise as much money as possible is an affront to poor people and hence is unaccept-
able. Of course, negotiation on funding conditions is necessary, but in the last anal-
ysis, for most NGDOs most of the time, the moral imperative of growth wins out
because it also makes business sense. The prevalence of businessmen and women
on the governing boards of large NGDOs is an ongoing reection of this reasoning.
It responds to an implicit assumption that NGDO staff are amateurs who require
guidance, in which professionalism is equated with adopting techniques from
business management (Edwards and Fowler 2002). Moreover, as in other walks of
organizational life, continuity and viability are normal expectations for staff and an
enduring demand on leadership. The original NGDO mantra of working oneself
out of a job as a measure of success was always a somewhat ctional aspiration.
A predisposition towards growth was abetted by the pro-NGDO policies of
ofcial aid and a rapid increase in resources, which fuelled a substantial increase in
numbers, particularly in the South. The form and project-driven functioning of the
organizations that were created corresponded to Northern role models, with varied
degrees of afnity for local forms, norms, and practices. In some settings NGDOs
appeared as suspicious foreign bodies. In others they were considered as variations
on existing forms of organizing in which communities distributed resources for
social ends. Of general signicance, however, was the formation of an institutional
type and scale that was not proportional to the local resource base. As a result, aid
dependency was created, and remains a characteristic, of Southern NGDOs in a
system of partnerships in which calls for their sustainability are not met with
development ngos 47
investments that would make this a reality. Further, the deep origins of Northern
NGDOs in voluntarism seldom emerged in the less well-endowed circumstances of
the South. Consequently, NGDO-ism evolved as a form of social entrepreneurship
and employment-seeking, on occasion doing harm by undermining pre-existing
coping mechanisms and institutions (Holmn 2010).
The donors pro-NGDO policies of the 1980s also introduced an ofcial coopta-
tion of NGDO language, with interpretations of concepts such as empowerment,
transformation, participation, and partnership becoming increasingly state-
centric. Some donors introduced internal reforms to make these rhetorical concepts
more substantive in their own work. But, concomitantly, access to foreign aid became
increasingly dictated by ofcial perspectives and requirements which tended to stan-
dardize NGDO practices, thus eroding their potential comparative advantages and
their vocabulary (Wallace et al. 1998). These coercive features of the aid chain have
remained in play, reecting the continued asymmetries of power between NGDOs
and donors (Wallace et al. 2006). Finally, in addition to serving certain functional
needs designed to improve development performance, on occasion NGDOs also
provided donor countries with an informal presence in countries ruled by anti-
Western regimes during the Cold War era. Consciously or not, NGDOs served the
implicit geopolitical agenda of aid allocation to promote Western interests.
In retrospect, the 1980s were a golden era for NGDO expansion and accom-
modation within the ofcial aid system, but one that had mixed long-term conse-
quences. By and large, it can be argued that for both internal and external reasons,
the formative period of NGDO-ism tilted NGDOs towards an apolitical economy
of their own development. Contention around economic models and politics was
not wholly jettisoned. Tacit acceptance of the donors neoliberal economic solu-
tions to poverty reduction was accompanied, for some NGDOs, by an agitatory,
reformist, critical engagement towards the main players in the foreign aid system
that gained traction at the beginning of the twenty-rst century. By the end of the
1980s, NGDOs had come of age. They were now an acknowledged presence on the
international development landscape, and some had global ambitions (Lindenberg
and Bryant 2001). The notion of alternatives described above still held sway (Drabek
1987), but with relatively little by way of substantive evidence to test it or experience
of government discomfort with their roles in the foreign aid system. This situation
was to change markedly in the 1990s.
3. Revisionism and Reconceptualization

The evolution of NGDOs over the past twenty years can be explained in terms of a
continuation of earlier systemic processes, but within less benevolent environments
that stem partly from critical evaluations of NGDO achievements and partly from
disruptive punctuations in the global order. Previous trends and unexpected
discontinuities have interacted in complex ways that are far from resolved, subject-
ing NGDO-ism to much uncertainty in the future. Four systemic trends have altered
the generally positive NGDO trajectories of the 1970s and 1980s.
First, throughout the 1990s, studies and conferences on NGDO-ism and
NGDO performance gave rise to increasing skepticism about their value-added
and comparative advantages (Edwards and Hulme 1992, 1995; Sogge 1996; Smillie
1995; Hulme and Edwards 1997; Hossain and Myllyl 1998). Summative evaluations
of NGDO performance at the end of the twentieth century could nd no unequiv-
ocal support for the proposition that high expectations had been realized in prac-
tice (Fowler 2000a; Riddell 2007). The overall picture was one of occasional marked
successes; some positive but scattered micro-level results; and generally very mod-
est, uneven achievements. Little could be found in the way of systemic results in
micro-development that was attributable to NGDOs as a distinct type of entity. In
addition, the scale of their outreach to the poor was not particularly signicant,
and serious doubts had emerged about their ability to reach the very poor and the
poorest.
Second, there was growing frustration within the NGDO community about the
willingness and ability of Northern NGDOs to be authentic partners with their
Southern counterparts by devolving, or at least sharing, power and decision making
(Fowler 2000b). Compounding this trend was a strategic shift in many INGDOs to
reposition themselves in relation to the decentralization of donor nancing directly
to the South. One result was to squeeze out local NGDOs from the foreign aid scene,
which was already moving towards budget support to governments, tied to com-
petitive bidding for donor-nanced contracts. This led INGDOs to initiate pro-
cesses to localize themselves on the one hand, while federating into more
coherent transnational actors on the other. In sum, there was increasing evidence
that Northern NGDOs were not living up to their own relational rhetoric (Edwards
2005). Instead they were seeking self-continuity by adjusting their geopolitical
economy at the cost of solidarity as originally understood.
Third, and partly in response to Southern NGDO criticism, Northern NGDOs
started to reduce their operationality and shift their focus towards national and
international policy advocacy. The latter function has emerged with some success,
as seen in the achievement of the anti-debt coalition, the International Coalition to
Ban Land Mines (van Rooy 2004) and numerous national policy processes (Court
2006). This transnationalization of NGDO-ism gained momentum in global policy
debates, increasingly framed in terms of a discourse around global civil society
(Edwards and Gaventa 2001; Batliwala and Brown 2006). However, policy success
invited greater government discomfort and a backlash against participation by enti-
ties that were seen as unaccountable, leading to a quest for stronger accountability
in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Fox and Brown 1998). This remains a challenge for
NGDOs, as evidenced, for example, in the adoption of codes of conduct to allow for
self-, rather than state-, regulation.4 The discomfort this created among Southern
governments was a precursor to their behavior towards NGDOs in reaction to
major disruptions in international relations as discussed below.
development ngos 49
Fourth, and potentially most far-reaching, the last twenty years of NGDO-ism
have witnessed a confused displacement of identity and self-understanding which
has many different origins. One was the emergence of a different alternative dis-
course on development premised on the logic of universal rights, rather than the
logic of achieving a different economic model as it had been envisaged in the 1970s.
The idea grew that inadequate NGDO performance during twenty years of satisfying
basic needs could be redressed by concentrating on the causes of development prob-
lems, not their symptoms. Adopting power-related, rights-based approaches to
development work was seen as the key to this reorientation. However, implementing
this agenda remains a challenging, risk-strewn path. Notwithstanding high levels of
commitment, marrying the logic of rights to the satisfaction of immediate needs has
proved difcult to achieve in NGDO development practice (Elliott, 2008).
Compounding these evolutionary pressures was a further change that stemmed
from the abrupt, disruptive implosion of the Soviet Union. This event reinvigorated
attention to civil societya political category that, like rights, relies on citizenship
as the dening relationship between a polity and a state. The triumphalist euphoria
of Fukuyamas The End of History and the widespread adoption of civil society lan-
guage opened new avenues for a more overt aid agenda around good governance
and democratization (Clark 1991). Without much in the way of conceptual rigour,
NGDOs and NGDO-ism were relocated by donorsand often repositioned
themselvesin this new discourse, which called for different competencies in
building civil society (VeneKlasen 1994). Paradoxically, one positive outcome of
this unanticipated evolution was the stimulation of roles that NGDOs could play in
the emerging ecologies of civil society as advisers, bridges, and nodes of networks,
as well as intermediaries for resources that became available, particularly for demo-
cratic consolidation in post-Soviet countries (Pratt 2003).
Locating NGDOs in civil society meant that the parameters for judging their
capacity and performance were shifted towards small-p politics. Consequently,
throughout the 1990s, signicant funds were allocated towards promoting and con-
solidating civil society, often with a nave projectized approach that generated per-
verse effects (Ottaway and Carothers 2000). This approach permeated NGDO-ism
still further. Liberal perspectives about civil society were propagated by Western
governments, rather than by NGDOs articulating for themselves what it might
mean to be part of civil society, however they understood that term. This lapse was
characteristic of a generally self-disempowering reactive stance among NGDOs
along the lines identied by Goldfarb (2006), in not being able to dene and address
new situations proactively, a form of behavior that abets their subordination to
other civic actors that are driven from below. Though too easily labeled as social
movements, these actors are often driven by a political entrepreneurship of the
local that NGDOs are too often self-constrained to embark on, or are able to sup-
port, without distorting their purpose and identity.
A third major convulsion for NGDOs during the 2000s can be traced to the
global war on terror that arose in response to the terrorist attacks on the
United States on September 11, 2001. Important features of the NGDO operating
environment changed almost overnight. One effect was the more active alignment
by donors of development aid with diplomacy and defense: the three-dimensional
triad of foreign relations (Beall et al. 2006). The reallocation of aid towards conict
areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan recalibrated where Northern NGDOs would
focus their efforts and potential for nancing in relief and reconstruction. However,
there is increasing evidence that the allocational choices of Northern NGDOs
already followed in the slipstream of their ofcial funders, since their geographical
distribution of aid correlates more highly with their governments than one would
expect from a perspective of autonomy (e.g., Koch 2009). That NGDOs follow
donor geo-priorities was not new; it simply became more obvious.
Reecting the backlash of earlier years, the global war on terror has re-enabled
governments everywhere to introduce legislation which curtails the space for civic
agency. For NGDOs, this has proven to be a relational stress test (Fowler and Sen
2010), particularly with their counterparts in the Middle East. For example, Southern
NGDOs work on the frontlines of anti-terror policies and domestic laws, and hence
carry greater risks in embarking on rights-based approaches than their Northern
partners. The SouthNorth solidarity that had been built up over previous years
faced serious challenges as Northern or International NGDOs complied with
domestic rules and security-related tests of their overseas activities. Internal and
external pressures on NGDOs to revert to the relative safety of increasing poor peo-
ples access to social services and material empowerment increased considerably,
exemplied in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The demand
for greater effectiveness in harmony with the policies of the ofcial aid system under
the Paris Agenda is another example of these pressures at work (Booth 2008). Thus,
for NGDOs, the end of the rst decade of the twenty-rst century was characterized
by shrinking room to maneuver and cooptation into the mainstream foreign aid
system. How might these forces play out in the future?
4. NGDOs and the Certainty

of Uncertainty
The end of the second millennium produced a plethora of predictions about
NGDOs and NGDO-ism in the twenty-rst century (Edwards and Sen 2000; Lewis
and Wallace 2000; Fowler 2000c). Unforeseen disruptions in the past ten years, cul-
minating in the near-collapse of the global nancial system and the form of capital-
ism it supports, testify to the fallacy of prediction, scenario-building, and other
forms of clairvoyance. Perhaps the only rm futures assertion is that the uncer-
tainties associated with the interaction between technological advances, multi-
centric geopolitics, the volatile economics of globalization, and the impact of
climate change, will continue to increase. A not unreasonable speculation, therefore,
development ngos 51
would be that states everywhere will become increasingly preoccupied with a basic
raison detre of attaining and maintaining stability, domestically, and internation-
ally. Overtly or otherwise, foreign aid will be framed and applied with this new real-
ity in mind, and the allocation of ofcial aid to different countries will reect this
political calculus.
Unlike civil society groups that are not dependent on foreign aidwhich can
disruptively agitate for changeNDGOs will nd it difcult to embark on direc-
tions that differ from those which governments and ofcial aid agencies expect, or
will tolerate. Obviously, though, NGDOs could pursue social justice as a strategic
contribution to a stabilizing imperative. Alternatives based around redistribution,
inclusion, and civic action are all possible means to this end. Assuming the continu-
ation of the slipstream character of much NGDO-ism, a point of reference for the
future could also be the quality of the environments of the populations with whom
they choose to work, loosely understood as the stability characteristics of nation-
states that merit international aid. This measure can also accommodate recent sce-
narios that have informed a new humanitarianism, which is certainly a strategic
option for some NGDOs (Feinstein Centre 2010). This analysis posits conict set-
tings that call for a trifurcation of humanitarian action: one approach that requires
total impartiality; another in which aid is an instrument deployed to affect conict
outcomes; and a third in which failed states lack robust or stable governance. The
risks and implications of each are very differentfor example, for NGDOs that
interface with the military and security services.
In the case of development policy after the Millennium Development Goals,
unless NGDOs quickly and seriously invest in their own transformation, their
future scenarios will reect expectations of what they do as harmonized comple-
ments to ofcial foreign aid under different country conditions. Such organiza-
tional transformations are not considered very likely (Ronalds 2010), in part because
they involve better ways of recognizing and equalizing power relations, both in
development practice and in relationships within NGDO-ism itself (Groves and
Hinton 2004). Transformation also requires a rethinking of growth as the metric
which counts most of all. NGDOs that cannot take these steps, especially from the
North, will be less well positioned to counter their continued incorporation into the
ofcial mainstream. Instead, they are likely to face increasing dependency on ofcial
aid priorities and stabilizing policies, and increasing pressure to satisfy the expecta-
tions they will bring. The general point is not to predict which scenario NGDOs will
follow, but to suggest that international NGDOs may need to cope with macro-in-
stability dynamics, while Southern NGDOs should be supported to deal with micro
variations of instability within their countries.
A stability-driven picture of NGDO-ism in the years ahead will be subjected to
many aid-related dynamics. Examples include the increasingly important behavior
of mega-philanthropies, the role of diaspora transfers, and the rise of new bilateral
donors such as China, India, and Brazil. Another dynamic already in play is the
displacement of NGDOs by other civic actors and their agency, a trend that has
nothing to do with foreign aid. These energies are often driven by citizens who
engage in changing society as a political project, not as a technical exercise (Fowler

and Biekart 2008). Perhaps, therefore, the future of NGDO-ism is really in the bal-
ance, not in the sense of their continued survival, but in the sense of their declining
proportional relevance, resilience, t, and embeddedness in civil society at large.
NOTES
1. See www.icnl.org and www.ijcsl.org.

2. See http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/may/07/news/chi-russia-civil_rodriguez
may07.
3. This formulation includes pretender NGDOs as well as those who are antagonistic
to the ways in which aid is both conceived and functions, and demanding its reform, replace-
ment, or ending altogether. Foreign aid is still their point of reference.
4. See www.oneworldtrust.org/csoaccountability.
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chapter 5
GRASSROOTS ASSOCIATIONS
frances kunreuther
Voluntary associations are often assumed to be synonymous with civil society and
an engaged democratic citizenry. As the numbers and scope of voluntary associa-
tions have increased, civil society advocates have cited evidence that such associa-
tions advance the public good directly (by addressing issues such as poverty,
inequality, and environmental degradation) and indirectly (by bringing people into
democratic life individually and collectively). Associations provide spaces in which
people can practice civic engagement and address problems that are unlikely to be
resolved by government or the for-prot sector.
This chapter examines a subset of these associations that work primarily at the
local level to promote strong grassroots participation in civil society. The chapter
reviews the denition and scope of these associations and their relationships to
other civil society groups, especially in the United States, and introduces another,
overlooked, category of associations that are committed to the public good called
social change organizations or SCOs. SCOs include grassroots associations and
community organizing groups, and also other organizations that seek to change the
underlying systems and structures of power in society. The chapter concludes with
two examples that show how new alliances between these different types of grass-
roots association are emerging to link local work with larger efforts to build civic
voicea crucial task for the future.
1. The Theory of Grassroots Associations

Grassroots associations are a subset of the associational universe and in many ways
they capture the ideal of civil society. These are groups where people come together
voluntarily to advance a concern or interest, solve a problem, take an action, or con-

nect with each other based on something they share in common. Grassroots associa-
tions are characterized by more democratic and less hierarchical forms of governance
and accountability, the predominance of volunteers as opposed to paid staff, and
a local focus, factors which distinguish them from nonprot, staff-driven organiza-
tions (Smith 2000). A grassroots association can be a self-help group such as a chap-
ter of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), an after-school program organized by parents, a
storefront church, a neighborhood soup kitchen, a choral society, a block associa-
tion, and many, many more, and because such groups are largely run by volunteers,
their participants must accept or negotiate the terms on which the group organizes
its purposes, activities, responsibilities, and outcomes. Key to these groups is the fact
that those involved enter and leave voluntarily. Like others who promote their ben-
ets, Smith asserts that most grassroots associations are light on ideology but strong
in their commitment to teaching people the skills of democracy and participation.
The local, volunteer-driven character and small size of most grassroots associa-
tions often makes them hard to identify and quantify. In the United States, studies
often rely on data collected by government agencies that require formally incorpo-
rated groups over a certain size to provide information about their nances and
operations. This means that smaller groups are often overlooked, despite the fact
that they number over 7.5 million in the United States alone (Smith 2000). However,
it is precisely these characteristicssmall in scale, voluntary, and localthat make
grassroots associations so popular among advocates of civil society. By organizing
around common interests, grassroots groups provide one way to address the isola-
tion and sometimes overwhelming responsibilities that face individuals and fami-
lies in the contemporary world. People come together to learn, act, share, discuss,
and enjoy. Associations do not simply meet social needs, they also provide skills that
help individuals to engage in the political and economic system, and build increased
capacity at the local level for citizen interaction in democratic societies.
Grassroots associations are the often unrecognized places where a communitys
strengths can be identied and mobilized. Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) have
pointed to the importance of acknowledging that all communities, even those that
have serious social and economic decits, are rich in associational life, a richness
that helps to compensate for their lack of formal support systems and resources.
The appeal of grassroots associations as the building blocks of civil society is that
they offer venues in which people can convene across the lines of income, race, gen-
der, geography, and other potential divides, in order to articulate and advance the
interests they hold in common.
2. The Practice of Grassroots Associations

These presumed advantages are often idealized, however. Although the number of
grassroots associations has increased signicantly on a macro level over the last few
grassroots associations 57
decades in the United States and elsewhere, economic inequalityan indicator of

less rather than more democracyhas widened (Bartels 2008). Furthermore, if
these associations are entry points for democratic practice and civic engage-
ment, why have their numbers grown while the most direct expression of civic
participationvotinghas declined? One reason is that, although at the micro
level, the internal decision-making processes of grassroots groups may be less hier-
archical and more democratic, these conditions support but do not guarantee par-
ticipation in formal and informal politics.
Without paid, professional staff to make decisions and take action, the group
must set their own direction, and decisions at volunteer-run organizations are less
likely to be oriented towards the funding sources that are required to keep staff-
driven organizations aoat. Grassroots associations may be places in which people
can practice their civic involvement, but they are not necessarily spaces where delib-
eration and civic leadership are learned. A small local group with paid staff that is
viewed by the community as a grassroots group may be democratically run, while a
mostly volunteer-led afliate of a larger federated group may be subject to decisions
enforced by the national organization. One example is the Girl Scouts in the United
States, where the national headquarters has been working to increase the groups
overall effectiveness. The results may be mostly positive, but led to internal contro-
versy when a decision to merge two afliates was made over the objections of the
local community (Boy and Girl Scouts 2008). Grassroots associations may be domi-
nated by a volunteer founder or founding group that makes all major decisions, and
volunteers in grassroots organizations may choose not to be engaged in decision-
making processes at all. A person who joins a grassroots group as a friend to public
parks may be perfectly content to pick up trash one day a month.
When one looks closely at the contributions of these groups, they do provide
sites for citizens to express their interests, needs, and concerns, and at times they
build the practices of civic engagement, but the link between grassroots associations
and an engaged civil society is less clear. The right to association can benet the
common good, but is a chess club anything more than an association that is engaged
in a private purpose? An association such as AA, which is frequently cited as an
example of a group that is formal, voluntary, and grassroots, benets society by
helping individuals to stay alcohol-free, create networks of support, and become
productive members of society, but does participation necessarily translate into
involvement beyond the group itself? Does AA build civil society outside of its own
private spaces? Does the organization work for the public good above and beyond
the needs of its individual participants?
The debate over whether grassroots associations are expressions of civil society
in these broader senses also depends on the relationships between civil society, the
state, and the market. For example, the devolution of U.S. government functions
over the past thirty years has resulted in nonprots increasingly acting as private
contractors to the state, taking on responsibilities that are required either by law or
by social contract (Salamon 1995; Van Til 2000). In these circumstances, grassroots
associations may differ from other nonprots in their volunteer and locally driven
orientation, but they also ll gaps left behind by a diminished public sector. In this
context, do people in a community come together to establish more after-school
activities because they are civically engaged, or because cuts to public schools
mean that government no longer accepts responsibility for running these much-
needed programs, or because parent groups want to be more involved in
government-sponsored activities in order to make them more accountable to their
interests, or a mixture of all three?
In addition, the existence of grassroots associations adds value to a community,
but that value is not equally distributed. Although associations cross all income
boundaries, they may be more frequently used byand be of greater benet to-
the wealthy, who already have more civic voice and power (Verba, Schlozman, and
Brady 1995). For example, wealthy homeowners who form an association are more
likely to inuence laws, regulations, and policies than a tenants association in a
low-income community. A grassroots association in which local citizens come
together to improve their schools, or clean up their neighborhoods, is easier to form
and maintain in some communities than others, with income as a prime differenti-
ating factor. This is not to say that low-income communities lack grassroots associa-
tions, but there are more factors that militate against their inception, ongoing
existence, and impact. It is precisely because of continued inequalities of wealth and
power and their disproportionate impact on civil society that a subset of grassroots
associations called community organizing groups are important. They use the
unequal distribution of inuence and resources as their starting point for engaging
with communities.
3. Community Organizing: Civil

Society and Power
The visibility and popularity of community organizing groups increased in the
United States when President Barack Obama identied himself as a former com-
munity organizer during his election campaign in 2008, but community organizing
has a decades-long history and now a global presence. Community organizing
groups have an explicit goal of addressing power and inequality by engaging people
who have little inuence as individuals, but who can gain voice and inuence by
working more closely together. Like other grassroots associations, community orga-
nizing groups are formal associations that stress democratic decision-making and
the involvement of unpaid staff. Like social movements, most rely on mobilizing
people to work collectively in order to accomplish their goals. Most organizing
campaigns are not overtly ideological, but seek specic changes that focus on a
public issuefrom the need for a trafc light to protect children in the neighbor-
hood, to closing liquor stores in order to reduce crime, to opening up schools to
greater parent involvement and oversight.
Community organizing has a long history of mobilizing resources to ll unmet

needs that range from building community capacity for self-help to solving community
problems by shifting relationships of power. In its earlier manifestations, the eld was
primarily focused on local development, social planning or social action (Betten and
Austin 1990). Today, community organizing is most frequently associated with the work
of Saul Alinksy, who is known worldwide for the model he codied and promoted in the
United States in the mid-twentieth century. Alinksys background in the labor move-
ment of the 1930s taught him how workers with little power used controlled conict to
gain basic rights and inuence on issues such as wages, hours, and workplace conditions
(Betten and Austin 1990). Applying these techniques to white working-class neighbor-
hoods in Chicago, Alinksy focused on how the have-nots could gain power by working
together. Change happens, he believed, through confrontation, using the strength of
collective action to force concessions from politicians and other policy makers. Though
Alinksy was a fan of de Tocqueville and acknowledged the importance of associations in
making change, he also believed that change comes from power and power comes from
organization. In order to act, people must get together (Alinsky 1969, 113). In Alinskys
model, organizers work through local associations such as churches, labor unions, book
clubs, and others to build up their numbers. The Industrial Areas Foundation founded
by Alinksy continues this tradition today through faith-based organizations in many
parts of the United States (Warren 2001).
The landscape of community organizing has passed through a variety of modi-
cations over the past fty years. Many groups have adapted Alinskys techniques,
while keeping the emphasis on building power and changing power relations. For
example, the United Farm Workers organized individuals (not organizations with
constituencies) often through house meetings, and members were offered mutual
benets. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)
evolved out of welfare rights organizing, focusing on reaching the very poor.
Feminist critiques of Alinskys emphasis on the public sphere recognized the need
to organize in the private sphere in order to address issues such as domestic abuse.
Others have promoted organizing in ways that take account communities of inter-
est, especially race, where issues facing communities of color are highlighted and
addressed. (Sen 2003; Jacoby-Brown 2006; Minieri and Gestos 2007).
These different approaches persist to this day. Smock (2004) identies ve proto-
types: power, community-based, civic, women-centered, and transformative. The
style of organizing promoted by Alinksy is the basis of the power model that empha-
sizes the need for confrontation. Community-based organizing, on the other hand,
addresses the lack of infrastructure and capacity building in low-income communi-
ties and looks to solutions from the State. Civic organizing stresses the need for public
order in order to stabilize and build safe communities, while women-centered groups
organize in ways that challenge the divide between the public and private spheres in
offering safe spaces and support. Transformative organizing focuses on how to rethink
the ways in which public and private institutions operate in order to address the root
causes of inequality. Smocks analysis separates groups according to the problems they
are ultimately trying to solve. Groups that use power models see organizing as a tool
of democratic pluralism, in which the goal is to enhance a communitys ability to

access more power and inuence. Groups that stress transformative organizing are
looking for changes that ultimately address the institutional injustices that are embed-
ded in larger systems. More recent work by Su (2009) explores the differences that
exist between groups, following Alinsky, that organize within systems in order to
obtain a larger piece of the pie, and those, following the popular education approach
of Paulo Friere, that raise consciousness about the deeper problems of State and mar-
ket institutions that must be addressed to change or enlarge the pie itself.
Social movement organizations also use community organizing strategies to
create mass-based power for change (Ganz 2009), as in South Africas anti-apartheid
movement for example, where organizing took place not only within South Africa
to mobilize support but also to inspire a worldwide divestment campaign which
targeted governments and corporations. But not all community organizing groups
are linked to movements. Most, like other grassroots associations, are conned to
local communities, and even when they enjoy signicant successes their results
rarely add up to large scale, mass-based movement building across localities that
creates signicant social change.
Two basic tenets remain key to most community organizing practices today. The
rst is to identify common issues that affect a group of people and encourage them to
address these issues collectively. The second is to move individuals and their private
interests towards a common identity and a shared platform from which they can act
together in this way (Chetkovich and Kunreuther 2006). Community organizing is
therefore centrally concerned with preparing people to engage in the public sphere,
especially those who are marginalized in the democratic process. In theory, organizing
takes its cue for action from the individuals who are experiencing the problem, so that
the issues are identied by the community and reect their needs. In practice, some
organizing efforts focus on a particular campaign that will benet a community, and
then members are enlisted to participate. Hence, community organizing can enhance or
undermine equality, fairness, and sustainable development, because the organizing pro-
cess can be used by any group of people to bring about the changes they desire. In the
United States, for example, the recent Tea Party movement has used the Alinsky model
to hold politicians accountable during town hall meetings held in their local communi-
ties, but in support of values and policies that Alinsky would never have endorsed (Stellar
2009). Hence, it is the combination of the forms of organizing with the norms of social
change or social justice that is most important to long-term results.
4. Social Change Organizations: Creating

the Good Society
If grassroots associations are too broad to be equated with a particular vision of the
good society and community organizing is too narrow, a third group of social
change organizations has arisen at the intersection of these two categories to offer a
way to reconcile the dilemmas they evoke. Social change organizations (SCOs) are
voluntary associations in local communities that address systemic issues in order to
increase the power of marginalized groups, communities, or interests (Chetkovich
and Kunreuther 2006). Over the past twenty years, the term social change organiza-
tion has become commonplace among practitioners in the voluntary sector, but it
is barely recognized in the academic literature on civil society, nonprots or social
movements. Community organizing groups are a subset of SCOs when they oper-
ate at a time or in a place where no mass-based social movements exist. Other social
change organizations deliver services, engage in advocacy, and ght legal battles to
solve problems caused by larger policies or systems. These are groups that are com-
mitted to a vision of the good society in which those with little inuence because of
their income, class, caste, immigrant status, race, gender, or sexual orientation are
supported to build their voice and engage in a variety of ways to address imbalances
of power.
Unlike grassroots associations, however, social change organizations may have
a majority of paid staff, but they are also characterized by their commitment to
involve their constituents in determining the direction of the organization and its
work. This commitment extends to organizational leadership, which must manage
both the operations of the group and the inclusion of the voices of staff members
and constituents, even though internal governance structures range from tradi-
tional hierarchies to collective decision making. If civil society is a space for associa-
tion and engagement in the public sphere oriented towards a vision of the good
society that benets all its citizens, then social change organizations are key
(Chetkovich and Kunreuther 2006). They work in local communities to address
critical issues such as environmental degradation, economic inequality, radical fun-
damentalism, identity-based discrimination, service needs, and the denial of basic
human rights by states, though in practice their achievements indicate more success
with engaging local constituents than in addressing the roots causes of problems.
Like many grassroots associations, these organizations are entry points into the
public sphere at a local level, and it is in the local arena that they are able to make a
difference. However, the fact that many decisions are not made at a community level
often thwarts social change organizations efforts to build their vision of a good and
just society.
Progress towards the good society is often seen in large-scale social movements,
from the civil rights movement in the United States to the rise of Solidarity in
Poland, which found support in civil society associations (Morris 1984; Walzer 1995).
But in the absence of transformative movements, social change organizations can
make systemic changes by joining forces in order to scale up their inuence, work-
ing together across their local interests or acting as afliates of a national organiza-
tion. In the United States, the latter model has had more success than the former,
but it has its own set of risks. National groups with local afliates have a tendency
to promote their own agendas and reinforce top-down control through their size
and power (Piven and Cloward 1978), and it can be difcult avoid a command and
control structure rather than building from the bottom up, from the local level to
the national. In addition, the afliates of national organizations may be torn between
loyalty to national and local efforts. Even the process of creating local organizations
may feel like an invasion of, rather than a support for, a community, especially if the
group was not invited in by constituents. There can also be unseen vulnerabilities,
as the case of ACORN in the United States demonstrates. Successful attacks on
ACORN from conservatives in 2008 and 2009 not only jeopardized its mission
(eventually leading to ACORNs disbandment), but also revealed a lack of internal
transparency and accountability over nance and board governance that were in
conict with ACORNs public vision of social change (Cohen 2009).
Trying to scale up across different groups and localities through coalitions of
membership organizations has, until recently, seemed unmanageable in the U.S.
context, especially when they cross diverse issue areas, geographic boundaries,
identity groups, goals, and constituencies. But now there are new formations that
are attempting to do just this. Some are loose afliations that raise funds together
for a broad common agenda, and others are more structured. Among the former
are the Pushback Network, a national collaboration of indigenous, grassroots
organizations and networks committed to building bottom-up, state-based alli-
ances that change both the composition and levels of participation of the
electorate.1 The Pushback Networks members operate in eight states, and each
has its own approach to winning power for social change. Sharing information and
raising funds to support organizing and electoral work have been two important
components of the networks success. Hence, organizing above the local level is a
crucial ingredient of success.
5. Social Change Organizations in Action
a. The Right to the City

In 2007, a group of local community organizing groups formed the U.S.-based
Right to the City (RTTC), a national alliance that seeks to create regional and
national impacts in the elds of housing, human rights, urban land, community
development, civic engagement, criminal justice, environmental justice, and more. 2
With a core membership of thirty-seven base-building organizations in eight cit-
ies, RTTC is afliated with the global Right to the City movement that grew out of
the World Urban Forum in 2004. The agenda of Right to the City reects its broad
vision that everyone, particularly the disenfranchised, not only has a right to the
city, but as inhabitants, have a right to shape it, design it, and operationalize an
urban human rights agenda.
Right to the City is a membership organization in which local organizing groups
with similar analyses and goals nd ways of working together to have a larger impact.
Jon Liss (2009), the director and one of the founding members of Tenants and
Workers United, describes how the work of RTTC groups emerged in the void that
was left behind by the decline of labor unions in the United States (organizations
that historically tended to exclude people of color and women), the increase of
immigrant workers in the labor force, and the breakup of the new left. In the
1980s, new, power-based organizing groups emerged to challenge Alinksys color-
blind approach. They concentrated on transformational work with members as
well as achieving concrete victories, but were unable to reach the scale required to
give low-income communities, communities of color, and immigrant communities
enough power to make signicant systems change. Right to the City is an opportu-
nity to address these shortcomings by building cohesion and sense of collective
power, and developing a new generation of strategies around a shared ideology that
offers member organizations a strong sense of belonging as well as concrete accom-
plishments on which to build their inuence.
Liss is one of the members of the Right to the City working group on civic
engagement, a strategy that promotes voter education, counts disenfranchised com-
munities in the U.S. Census, and pursues other forms of action focused on energiz-
ing the public sphere. The working group members share information to strengthen
civic engagement efforts in their own regions, and offer ideas to other RTTC groups
across their different cities. For example, Tenants and Workers United has been
organizing in Virginia for the past twenty years. Three years ago, Liss and his col-
leagues founded a sister organization called Virginias New Majority to focus on
voter engagement. New Majority was incorporated under a different tax status than
Tenants and Workers; as a nonprot, it is permitted by law to inuence legislation
and engage in some forms of political activity. Tenants and Workers United, like
most organizations in the U.S. voluntary sector, is a charitable 501c3 organization
that must remain nonpartisan.
More explicitly, Virginias New Majority is a group that aims to expand democ-
racy in terms of who participates and maximize what democracy can look like . . . by
building a new common sense or understanding about politics, policies, culture,
and role of government . . . that moves hundreds of thousands of people (Liss 2009,
1). Yet for Liss, civic engagement work is different than community organizing.
While civic engagement has a broader reach, organizing still has a deeper impact on
those involved. For example, Virginias New Majority visited 300,000 homes in a
two-year period, far exceeding the 10,00015,000 homes reached by Tenants and
Workers each year. But Tenants and Workers was able to recruit 600 to 1,200 volun-
teer activists with a deep commitment to organizing and service programs, while
New Majority was only able to identify a few dozen new members. Trying carefully
to balance scale, depth and commitment to deep change, Lisss work reects some
of the larger hopes and challenges of the Right to the City alliance and its
members.
The members of Right to the City share a common theoretical framework based
on French philosopher Henri Lefebvres Le droite la ville (for which the group is
named). This shared analysis gives the group its cohesion, offering the potential to
be more than a series of individual organizations that share information with each
other. How and whether the members can really scale up their ideas and impact
within and across communities is yet to be tested, but the Right to the City model is
an important step forward for social change organizations, beyond allied relation-
ships (we like your work and you like ours) to the point at which strategic and
ideological partners engage with each other in the public sphere in order to create
the possibility of a good and just society.
b. Feminists Transformation Watch

While Right to the City aims is to strengthen local power as well as to work across
geographic boundaries in the United States, the Feminist Transformation Watch
(FTW) looks at how local grassroots efforts can be enhanced by working trans-
nationally. Their methodology of building power in one locality by drawing on the
resources and experiences of others is illustrated in the collaboration between Las
Petateras, a Mesoamerican feminist group, and Just Associates, a U.S.-based inter-
mediary that builds solidarity with womens groups in Mesoamerica, Southern
Africa, and Indonesia, and which is dedicated to supporting the capacity of women
to alter systems of power that perpetuate inequality and injustice. FTW is an inno-
vative attempt to support women who are questioning, confronting, and trans-
forming power to witness, document and bring attention to abuses of human
rights, and to support women on the frontline in these situations (Arroyo et al.
2008, 2).
The FTW approach reects an effort to scale out rather than scale up. It both
supports and draws attention to the importance of womens ability to participate in
the public sphere as visible actors, especially in countries where that ability is
severely restricted by repression or cultural factors. The process begins when women
in a given country issue a call for action that invites feminist media and interna-
tional delegations to convene (virtually or in person) as witnesses to grassroots
efforts to challenge existing power structures. Subsequent steps include the
following:
Designing and implementing a response to a particular situation affecting
women, such as systematic state-endorsed or state-tolerated violence against
women (for example in Ciudad Juarez and Oaxaca in Mexico).
Calling on women and womens organizations from outside the country to
serve as witnesses, amplify the issues, and generate more protection,
especially in situations where protest is increasingly criminalized.
Using the media, including radio and social networking, to reach out and
involve larger audiences (for example, special broadcasts directly from sites
of action where women call in from around the world and post statements
of support online).
Using statements provided by a group of women Nobel laureates who have
been organized as strategic allies to spotlight or directly participate in FTW.
Documenting lessons learnedboth the impact of the action and the

process of mobilizationin order to build the effectiveness of FTW and to
continue to address the local issues at hand.
The idea for the Feminist Transformation Watch began in Mesoamerica where a mul-
tigenerational group of women from different countries and diverse backgrounds
met at a workshop to talk about the need to weave their efforts together to create a
stronger impact. Critical of the fragmentation and demobilization that stem from
NGO politics and policy-driven forms of advocacy, they wanted to draw on the suc-
cesses of earlier feminist movements that focused on grassroots activities to draw
attention to injustices against women. Since 2006 there have been eight Feminist
Transformation Watch activities in Nicaragua, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica,
Honduras, and the United States, ranging from fact-nding on violence against
women in Guatemala to denouncing rights violations against pro-democracy activists
after a state coup in Honduras. The results have heightened the FTW groups under-
standing that there is a critical erosion of already limited spaces of citizen participa-
tion and a dismantling of the social fabric and worldviews that sustain and nurture
healthy and vibrant social and political relationships (Arroyo et al. 2008, 19).
The FTW model is not so much about aggregating civic inuence as about cre-
ating new ways of sharing power at and with the grassroots in order to highlight and
address sites of injustice through information sharing, creative intervention, com-
munications, and the collective strength that is achieved by weaving all of these
elements together. Like Right to the City, Feminist Transformation Watch is a young
civil society formation, yet it is already widely known and respected among Latin
American social movements. The evidence of FTWs long-term impact is not yet
clear, but a new level of engagement is already occurring. Those involved have been
both excited by the possibilities and educated on the difculties that small social
change groups encounter when crossing national borders in their efforts to involve
citizens in creating the good society.
6. Conclusion
Grassroots Associations are often equated with the ideals of civil society. They have
become the entry points for nonstate and nonprot activity outside of family life
that provide much-needed opportunities for gaining civic skills and acting in the
public sphere. Community organizing groups are a subset of these associations that
focus on building the power and voice of disenfranchised communities, and social
change organizations stand at the intersection of these two sets of groups, explicitly
addressing the root causes of inequality but engaging in a wider range of strategies
and forms of association which attempt to balance scale, depth, and commitment to
deep-rooted social change.
All of these associations work primarily at the community level, and they have
often been viewed as too localized to address larger, systemic barriers to the good
society. But recent developments indicate that new approaches to working across
organizational and geographic boundaries may be more successful in creating
change on a larger scale and at a deeper level than before. These new formations are
still nascent and their impact is unclear, but their attempts to address inequalities of
power by increasing citizen voice are an indication that new routes to civil society
through grassroots associations are constantly opening up, and must be nurtured.
NOTES
1. Pushback Networks ofcial website is http://pushbacknetwork.org.

2. Right to the Citys ofcial website is http://righttothecity.org.
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chapter 6
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
d onatella della p orta

and mario diani
Although empirically, collective actors dened as social movements on the one hand
and as civil society on the other present several overlapping themes, in the social sci-
ences these two elds of interestboth large and growinghave rarely interacted. In
fact, while in political and media discourse particular organizations, individuals, and
events are routinely described as stemming from one or the other, the social sciences
have stressed different core conceptualizations for each of these two phenomena.
This chapter explores the interactions between the social science literatures in
these two elds, and considers both differences and similarities in their conceptualiza-
tion as well as in the actual evolution of the social actors that have been identied and
recognized as social movements and as civil society. The chapter begins by discussing
the analytical relationships between these two concepts, before moving on to illustrate
some of the tensions that have emerged in their interrelationships and concluding by
showing how these tensions have evolved over time and may be resolved in the future.
1. Social Movements and Civil Society:

Basic Concepts
It is fair to say that analysts of social movementsor perhaps, more precisely, those
associated with mainstream social movement analysis in North American (and
American-inuenced) social sciencehave paid little attention to the concept of civil
society in their models (Snow, Soule, and Kriesi 2004). When they have done so, this has
been in the context of other conceptual debates such as that inspired by social capital,
social movements 69
rather than in any explicit dialogue with social movement theory (Edwards, Foley, and
Diani 2001). This does not mean that there are no logical areas of overlap. Depending on
ones denitions, social movements may be seen as an integral component of civil soci-
ety, and vice versa, associational life and participatory processes within civil society may
be regarded as one instance of broader social movement dynamics. While there is no
space here for a systematic discussion of these two concepts (Diani 1992; Kumar 1993;
Edwards 2009), we can illustrate their relationships by looking at Dianis denition of
social movements as informal networks created by a multiplicity of individuals, groups,
and organizations, engaged in political or cultural conicts on the basis of a shared col-
lective identity (Diani 1992; della Porta and Diani 2006). Social movements are actually
just one possible mode of coordination of collective action within civil society. Their
peculiarity lies in the coupling of dense interorganizational networks and collective
identities that transcend the boundaries of any specic organization and encompass
much broader collectivities (Diani and Bison 2004). A good deal of collective action in
civil society may also take the form of instrumental coalitions, in which collaboration
neither relies on, nor generates larger identities. At other times, collective action is pro-
moted by networks of like-minded people concerned with a specic issue or a broader
cause (think, for example, of communities of practice or epistemic communities), rather
than by organizations alone. Finally, collective action may take place within specic
organizations without stimulating the growth of broader networks and identities.
Given this complexity of forms, and the fact that there is neither awareness nor
consensus on the distinctiveness of the various types, it is no surprise that in practical
terms researchers who claim to be primarily interested in social movements or in civil
society end up with quite similar questions and empirical objects of analysis. For exam-
ple, both lines of research share an interest in the mechanisms that facilitate or discour-
age citizens involvement in collective action as individuals (Marwell and Oliver 1993;
Wilson 2000; Diani and McAdam 2003). The two lines of inquiry also converge when
movements are regarded primarily as sets of organizations with similar or at least com-
patible goals, rather than as networks of interdependent actors. If the focus is on volun-
tary organizations as organizations rather than on their networks, then the distinction
between social movement organizations (the term favored by movement analysts),
voluntary associations, and public interest groups (the term favored by civil society
analysts) loses some of its relevance. There is much common ground in considering
how these organizational forms combine a quest for efcacy with a commitment to
decentralized, participatory structures; how they coordinate resources; and other impor-
tant issues (Kriesi 1996; Jordan and Maloney 1997; Anheier and Themudo 2002).
2. Conflictive and Consensual

Collective Action
Having identied some areas of convergence, it is also important to recognize where
these two elds of inquiry diverge. First, an emphasis on conict is not as strong in
reference to civil society as it is to social movements. Social movement studies have

since long stressed conict as the key dynamic element of societies. The European
tradition in social movement studies has looked at new social movements as poten-
tial carriers of a new central conict in post-industrial societies, or at least of an
emerging constellation of conicts. In the North American tradition, the resource
mobilization approach reacted to a then-dominant conception of conicts as
pathologies. However, from Michael Lipsky (1965) to Charles Tilly (1978), the rst
systematic works on social movements developed from traditions of research that
stressed conicts of power, both in society and in politics: Social movement actors
are engaged in political and/or cultural conicts, meant to promote or oppose social
change. By conict we mean an oppositional relationship between actors who seek
control of the same stakebe it political, economic, or cultural power and in the
process make negative claims on each otheri.e., demands which, if realized, would
damage the interests of the other actors (della Porta and Diani 2006, 21).
In contrast, analysts of civil society often focus on non- or less-contentious
forms of collective action that give priority to largely consensual issues and agendas
(Daly 2006; Edwards 2009): for example, campaigns promoting collective responses
to pressing public issues that most people recognize as important (such as environ-
mental degradation or the persistence of inequality between industrialized and
developing countries). These campaigns are surely akin to coalitions if not to full-
edged social movements, since they involve multiple organizations and may also
generate long-term solidarities. Yet conict is not necessarily central to them, since
civil society often acts in pursuit of goals dened broadly enough to make them
acceptableif not top-priorityto large sectors of public opinion. In an effort to
bridge these two sectors of social life, social movement analysts have sometimes
talked of consensus movements to identify instances of collective action in which
conict was either absent or peripheral (Loand 1989).
Similar considerations apply to social movement practices, which are often
dened as confrontational. Their tactics are disruptive in so far as, in order to cap-
ture the attention of the public and exercise pressure on power holders, they need
to amplify their voice through a (more or less symbolic) challenge to law and order.
Social movements are characterized by their adoption of unusual forms of political
behavior. Many scholars pinpoint the fundamental distinction between movements
and other political actors in the use by the former of protest as a form of exerting
political pressure. Protest is dened as a nonconventional form of action that inter-
rupts daily routines (Lipsky 1965).
Over the last few years, the analysis of social movements has been approached
through the concept of contentious politics, dened as episodic, public, and collec-
tive interaction among claim makers and their targets (when at least one govern-
ment is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claim and the claims would,
if realized, affect the interests of at least one of the claimants: McAdam, Tarrow, and
Tilly 2001). By contrast, research on civil society has stressed civility, dened as
respect for others, or tolerance, politeness, and the acceptance of strangers and their
views (Keane 2003). In many reections on contemporary societies, an autonomous
social movements 71
civil society is referred to as being capable of addressing the tensions that arise
between particularism and universalism, plurality and connectedness, diversity and
solidarity. It is, in this sense, called to be a solidarity sphere in which certain kind
of universalizing community comes gradually to be dened and to some degree
enforced (Alexander 1998, 7). Linked to this understanding is a view of civil society
as the texture of cooperative and associational ties that foster mutual trust and
shared values, ultimately strengthening social cohesion (Putnam 1993). The implied
link here between reducing conict and increasing social cohesion has been criti-
cized by those who argue that the articulation and explicit management of social
conict is essential for the survival of democracy (Mouffe 2005).
3. New Social Movements, Civil Society

and the Autonomy of the Self
If the social science literature stresses different conceptual elements in the deni-
tion of social movements and civil society, empirical trends have increased their
overlap. One such trend is the growing importance of the concept of autonomy in
social movements, which has always been central to the denition of civil society.
Dubbed as the most favored export from sociological theory into politics by
Mitzal (2001) and attened out and emptied of content by Chandhoke (2003), the
concept of civil society has been used as a synonym for associational life and eman-
cipation from authoritarian governments and corporate or commercial agendas.
Inspired in particular by new social movements and the movement for democracy
in Eastern Europe (Mitzal 2001), the revival of civil society in social theory in the
1990s coincided with the search for a space that was autonomous from both the
state and the market.
Since the 1970s, some social movements that have developed have been labeled
as new, to stress their distance from the working-class and nationalist movements
that had dominated industrial societies (Melucci 1996; Calhoun 1993). These
included movements on environmental issues, womens and other human rights,
gender and sexuality, peace and solidarity, as well as those advocating greater bal-
ance in North-South relations. While all of these movements were vocal in the pub-
lic arena and provided political representation either to deprived social groups,
unvested collective interests or both, they also contained strong elements that were
explicitly nonpolitical.
More specically, the new social movements focused their action on areas and
issues that did not relate directly to the struggle for state power, but aimed instead
at increasing the autonomy of individuals in relation to various political and
institutional spheres. Some of these issues concerned the conditions under which
knowledge is produced and used, both in its scientic and professional sense.
Environmental movements, for example, had a major interest in securing greater

freedom for researchers operating in public institutions to explore important lines
of research, such as alternative energy sources, that might not be relevant to estab-
lished economic interests; or in granting researchers more freedom to speak out on
issues of public concern, such as the risks associated with new technologies, regard-
less of the secrecy clauses that are often imposed by private companies that fund
research on these topics. Likewise, womens movements developed a strong dia-
logue with certain sectors of the medical profession in areas like womens health,
responsible maternity, and freedom of reproductive choice.
Common to these and to other new social movements, therefore, was a particu-
lar form of the struggle for autonomy that had been typical of civil society dynam-
ics. In the examples cited above, autonomy was searched for in relation to technocratic
apparatuses and corporate control over knowledge production. But the notion of
autonomy was articulated in many other ways: by feminism, through its stress on
the need to develop autonomy from male domination within the family, or from
established institutions such as churches on moral and ethical matters; by environ-
mentalism, through the promotion of sustainable forms of social organization,
autonomous from the logic of private prot and from global economic interests;
and by gay and lesbian movements, in terms of autonomy from heterosexual cul-
tural models and stereotypes. From these different angles, it is clear that the idea of
autonomy has become an important point of convergence between social move-
ment and civil society theories and practicesfor example, in the Habermasian
version of movements as reactions to the attempted colonization of life-worlds by
bureaucratic state and economic apparatuses, or in Meluccis (1996) view of move-
ments attempting to redene the relationships between individual and collective
experiences through the elaboration of challenging codes.
4. Social Movements, Civil Society

and Social Conflict
Since the 1980s, many of the new social movements have taken considerable steps
towards institutionalization and stronger ties to the political system. They have
become richer in material resources, gained better access to decision makers, and
become more and more focused on single issues. Indeed, an increasing focus on
single issues came to be seen as characteristic of social movements, vis--vis politi-
cal parties and labor unions (Kitschelt 2004). In parallel, recent literature on civil
society has stressed the growing specialization of organizations on particular issues,
often addressed within specic international regimes. A global civil society has
emerged, consisting largely of organizations that are professionalized, institutional-
ized, and focused around specic causes (Kaldor 2003).
social movements 73
This image of post-materialistic and single-issue actors was shaken during the
1990s, and broke down after the year 2000. Since that year, reactions to what activ-
ists refer to as hegemonic neoliberalism have brought about a resurgence of inter-
est in social issues, though blended with the concerns of the new social movements.
Does this signify a return to a class vision of societythe frame on which political
sociology had been built in the past and whose recent waning has been considered
as one of the causes of its decline (Savage 2001)? In the social movement eld, these
developments certainly indicate the limits of interpretations that stress the institu-
tionalization of class cleavages or opposed postmaterialist to materialistic values.
And in relation to civil society, they draw attention to attitudes among civic groups
to the state and the market. However, the return of the social question cannot be
read as a return to old-style class politics, for two main reasons. First, social con-
cerns are linked with other issues, and second, the movements that are emerging
tend to defend the autonomy of civil society, a position absent from traditional
visions of class politics.
In recent times, various streams of social movements can be interpreted as a
reaction to the retrenchment of the welfare state and to the increasing inequalities
that this has promoted, revitalizing the social dimension of conicta class cleav-
age (Rokkan 1982)that had appeared as pacied or tamed. If during the 1990s,
the free market was considered as a solution to public decits and unemployment,
since the year 2000 the negative consequences of economic globalization have
become more of a matter of public concern. In its different meanings and under-
standings, neoliberal economic globalizationor what Keane (2003) calls turbo-
capitalismis now perceived as the main target of both social movements and
civil society actors. In Europe, the end of the mid-century compromise between
capitalism and the welfare state (Crouch 2004) brought social rights to the center of
these conicts, albeit not without attention to new themes like environmental sus-
tainability and gender that had emerged with the new social movements. These
conicts also stress that, as scholars of civil society had observed a long time ago,
building a sphere of citizenship which is autonomous from the state and the econ-
omy does require inclusive citizens rights.
5. Social Movements, Civil Society,

and New Forms of Politics
By bringing social rights back into the debate, these conicts also stress the role that
politics has to play vis--vis the market. Politics has long been considered important
for constituting the norms and institutions of civil society, and ensuring the condi-
tions of equality and freedom in which civil society can prosper. If for Habermas
the welfare state implies a risk that the life-world will be penetrated by the
administrative state, it also represents a defense of the life-word against penetration

by the capitalist economy. In similar vein, in 1992 Cohen and Arato had called for a
reexive continuation of welfare policies to counter both the risks of colonization
by state power and the re-economization of society. Social movement studies, while
emphasizing the differences between civil society and movement actors, have also
considered the openness of institutions and the availability of alliances among insti-
tutional political actors as decisive for collective mobilization and its success.
In the past, old and new movements tended to align along existing political
party lines or to form new ones. Since the 1980s, a de facto division of tasks between
parties and movements has been noted, and often approved of. While social move-
ments, civil society organizations, and NGOs retreated to or constituted the social
sphere, political parties (especially on the Left) represented some of their claims in
political institutions. At the same time, changes were underway in the repertoire of
collective action. The social movement literature stressed a withdrawal of move-
ments from protest. Movement organizations had become better structured at the
national or even the transnational level, had acquired substantial material resources
and a certain public recognition, had established paid staff thanks to mass member-
ship drives, and had tended to replace protest by lobbying or other contentious
actions. They had become interest groups, albeit of a public interest type; had
entered the third sector, acquiring professionalism and often administering public
resources along the way; and/or had commercialized their activities by creating
(sometimes successfully) new niches in the market. In parallel, the literature on civil
society emphasized similar points by focusing on the richest and better-structured
organizations, made more inuential by their institutional contacts and legitimacy
in the public eye. In this sense, global civil society could be said to have developed
from the taming of social movements of the pre-1989 period as well as the decline
of older civic associations such as labor unions and their transformation into NGOs
(Kaldor 2003).
These emerging conicts suggest that the professionalization of politics and
citizens withdrawal from participation in public life, are far from undisputed
trends. Not only that: the grassroots conicts of the late 1990s and the early 2000s
seem to propose an alternative vision of politics itself. Although the interaction of
institutional politics and politics from belowbetween routine and contentious
politicscontinues to be important, the image of a division of labor between polit-
ical parties, especially on the Left, and movements is becoming more and more
problematic, challenged by civil society actors that are elaborating a different vision
of politics to underpin their changing roles. This is not anti-politics, but another
politics. This new conception of politics is critical of the increasingly professional-
ized institutional processes that have developed in industrial societies. While stress-
ing the need for political governance of the economy, these visions reect an
increasing tension between representative and participatory conceptions of politics.
In the former, politics becomes an activity for professionals who take decisions that
are legitimized by electoral investiture. In the latter, participatory processes and
social movements 75
institutions are open to citizens, who regard themselves as the subjects and actors of
politics itself.
This conception of politics from below does not imply withdrawal from
relations with formal, institutional politics. Research conrms the openness of
many social movement organizations to continued interaction with the institu-
tions of multilevel governance. This attitude, which is at odds with interpretations
of social movement organizations as focused solely on street protest or with civil
society as antipolitical in nature, is clear in recent writing and research (della Porta
2009a and 2009b).
In summary, contemporary social movements and civil society activism indi-
cate a return to politics in the street, but also stress an alternative conception of
politics in response to the difculties experienced by representative democracy
such as the decline of political party loyalties, the retrenchment of the state, and
the development of various forms of globalization. While the development of
much prior reection on civil society had taken state retrenchment for granted,
more recent thinking reects a growing demand to bring politics back into societ-
ies and into theorizing about them. Claims to autonomy from the state have not
weakened, but a growing number of civil society organizations have accepted the
increasingly political nature of their activities. At the same time, social movement
studies need to address the challenges that have arisen to the conception of a divi-
sion of labor between contentious and noncontentious politics, faced by the devel-
opment of international governance institutions as well as the decline of national
political parties.
In pursuing this line of inquiry, social movement analysts might well be
inspired by the growing appreciation of the relevance of transnational processes
that has spurred a growing debate on the emergence of global civil society (Anheier,
Glasius, and Kaldor 2001; Kaldor 2003; Keane 2003). The role of protest organiza-
tions alongside other types of NGOs in global civil society has already attracted
wide attention (Smith 2006; della Porta 2009a). The transnationalization of social
movements has been strongly linked to their struggles to create new and different
forms of the public spherespaces of autonomy from the mainstream corporate
media (Hackett and Carroll 2006). This has taken multiple forms. Sometimes, the
creation of new discursive spaces has relied on face-to-face interactions within
specic sub-cultural communities and movements in specic locations, particu-
larly in urban areas, and on the creation of local media. More frequently, however,
it has been pursued through the use of the Internet and the emergence of new
electronic media (Van de Donk, Loader, Nixon, and Rucht 2004). Well-known
examples of these phenomena include the Association for Progressive
Communication and the global justice network Indymedia. While many dispute
the extent to which contacts created through electronic communication can replace
real social ties and animate the mechanisms of trust and civic-ness associated
with the classic public sphere, it is clear that such media will play a growing role in
mobilization and campaigning.
6. Conclusion: Civil Society

as a Product of Protest?
One element that is commonly stressed in both the social movement and civil soci-
ety literatures is the relevance of a rich associational life for the development of
strong movements and an autonomous civil society. Recent research points to the
relevance of remobilizing previously existing networks (or movements), often with
their roots in the global protest campaigns of the 1990s and the early 2000s (della
Porta 2009a and 2009b). In this sense, the mobilizations of the 2000s are the out-
come of a lengthy process of creating ties and intensifying solidarities between
diverse strands of earlier progressive movements during transnational campaigns.
From this point of view, contemporary social movements conrm the importance
of the availability of resources for mobilization that social movement studies have
stressed since the 1970s, and which reections on civil society conrmed later on.
However, recent conicts also point to the effects of protest itself on the cre-
ation of resources of trust and solidarity necessary for the creation of public spheres.
In calling for social rights and the political responsibility to implement them, and
in building concrete alternatives, social movement and civil society organizations
not only deplete social capital but also produce it. While social movement studies
have focused on protest as a dependent variable (looking at how it is supported by
social capital), and the civil society literature has emphasized the role of nonpoliti-
cal and cooperative civil society groups, more recent conicts point to the role of
protest as an emergent event in producing civil society itself.
Research on networks in movement has long stressed that overlapping mem-
berships facilitate the integration of different movement areas (Diani 1995; Carroll
and Ratner 1996). Networking in-action increases the inuence of each organiza-
tion and individual. Coordination starts on the pragmatic grounds of facilitating
mobilization, and then helps the development of inclusive norms. The logic of the
network as an instrument for the coordination of activity facilitates the involve-
ment of different political actors. The network is often kept together mainly through
an emphasis on mobilization around concrete goals, but beyond this instrumental
aim, protest campaigns are spaces for the development of mutual understanding
(della Porta and Mosca 2007; della Porta 2008). The recognition of similarities
across countries through action in transnational networks enables the construction
of a transnational identity. In a scale-shift process (Tarrow 2005), activists begin to
identify themselves as part of a European or even global subject. This reciprocal
understanding is also considered by activists to be an antidote to single-issue claims:
overlapping memberships and participation in organizational coalitions have been
seen as preconditions for the spread of innovative ideas (as in the womens and
peace movements: Meyer and Whittier 1994).
Participation in protest campaigns also develops reciprocal knowledge and,
therefore, trust-in-action. From this point of view, activists interviewed in research
social movements 77
on Social Forums in Italy stress the growing dialogue between leaders (or spokes-
persons) of different organizations as one clear effect of the reciprocal understand-
ing developed during joint campaigns (della Porta and Mosca 2007). For rank and
le members, these campaigns are perceived as enabling a mutual familiarity that
favors the construction of shared objectives, as increased knowledge allows indi-
viduals to confront their prejudices.
These accounts of protest campaigns urge us to search for a balance between
the venerable tradition in sociology that recognizes the fundamental role of conict
in creating solidarity, and concepts such as reciprocity, civility, and respect that have
been pivotal in reections on civil society. Far from making old sociological catego-
ries redundant, these challenges stimulate us to look at the emerging nature of social
movements as actors capable of producing new resources-in-action.
From this perspective, a more intense dialogue between social movement and
civil society scholars, as well as between social and political theorists and empirical
analysts, might improve our understanding of major social transformations. As we
have shown in this chapter, even though they developed apart from each other,
social movement and civil society studies have addressed similar theoretical issues
and covered similar empirical ground.
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chapter 7
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AND

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
alex nicholls
Social entrepreneurship represents one of the most notable innovations in global

civil society in recent times (Dees 1998). While many of the activities and approaches
associated with this term are not in themselves newfor example, social enter-
prises use of business models to generate income to support social programmes
(Alter 2006)the evolution of a discrete organizational eld for such action does
represent an important structural change in the institutions of social action (Dees
1994, 1996). Although the term social entrepreneur was rst coined as long ago as
the 1970s, it has only been in the past fteen years or so that the term has started to
gain traction within a range of interrelated discourses across civil society, govern-
ment, and the private sector (Lounsbury and Strang 2009). Such discourses have
been shaped and driven forward by a range of new eld-building organizations.
However, the institutionalization of social entrepreneurship as a new conceptual
apparatus with which to make sense of innovation in civil society remains an ongo-
ing, and sometimes controversial, project (Nicholls 2010a) not least because it is
seen by some as signifying the marketization of collective action and of civil society
activities previously based around participation, active citizenship, and political
change. Indeed, social entrepreneurship has been conceived as a mechanism by
which business (and the state) can co-opt and compromise the integrity and inde-
pendence of civil society rather than reinvigorate and diversify its models of societal
change. While such critiques represent a useful corrective to some of the hyperbole
that is associated with social entrepreneurship, they also misinterpret the particular
distinctiveness of this new eld of action: namely, that it aims to generate outcomes
that are superior to conventional models through innovation in, and disruption to,
the status quo of public, private, and civil society approaches to the provision of
social and environmental goods.
social enterprise and social entrepreneurs 81
Social entrepreneurs represent a new generation of civil society actors who are
driven to address the systemic problems facing the world today. Such individuals
sometimes conform to the heroic norms and distinctive personality traits associated
with conventional entrepreneurs such as risk-taking, creativity, an overly optimistic
approach to analysis, and bricolage, but signicantly, they are more likely to draw on
the communitarian, democratic, and network-building traditions that have always
underpinned civil society action (Nicholls 2006). Thus, social entrepreneurship is
best understood in a linearrather than disruptiverelationship with the historical
norms of social and community action. For example, many social enterprises dem-
onstrate a strong inuence from the traditions of mutualism and cooperatives that
go back to the nineteenth century. These traditions included space for distributed
models of ownership, asset locks and dividend caps, democratic management struc-
tures, and organizational structures designed to reect social mission rather than
mimetic isomorphism (Michie and Llewelyn 2006). What is distinctive, therefore,
about social entrepreneurship are not the institutional elements it embodies, but
rather the patterns in which it assembles familiar material into new, sector-blurring,
organizational logics and structures (Peredo and McLean 2006; Sud et al. 2009).
Actions of this kind are able to harness organizational hybridity to drive inno-
vation and change that is focused on social and environmental outcomes, often by
generating positive externalities and new market structures (Osberg and Martin
2007). For civil society, social entrepreneurship has come to represent a new stream
of activity that aligns the objectives of achieving scale in systemic social change with
the goal of empowering individuals as a changemakers (Drayton 2002). For gov-
ernment, particularly in the United Kingdom, the for-prot social enterprise model
offers an attractive approach to marketizing social welfare programs without pro-
posing a fully edged privatization of the state (Social Enterprise Unit 2002; Cabinet
Ofce 2007). For the private sector, social enterprise provides a model to access
otherwise inaccessible market opportunities such as the poor at the Bottom of the
Pyramid movement; state welfare budgets; and a growing body of ethical con-
sumers (Nicholls and Opal 2005). Engagement with social entrepreneurship has
also provided other commercial benets, both as a means by which agging
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies can be rejuvenated in the face of
increasingly cynical consumers (Prahalad 2006), and as a new arena for investment
that is typically uncorrelated with conventional capital markets (Nicholls 2010b).
1. The Institutional Drivers of Social

Entrepreneurship
There have been a number of drivers behind the recent acceleration in the growth
of social entrepreneurship. Most obviously, the demand for innovative social and
environmental action has increased as global crises have proliferated and deepened
in their impact (Bornstein 2004). Such crises include the effects of climate change
and environmental degradation; new health pandemics; water and energy crises;
growing migration; seemingly intractable issues of inequality and endemic poverty;
the rise of terrorism and nuclear instability; and the challenge of afuence in
many developed countries (Offer 2006). Beyond these urgent threats, a range of
other inuences can also be identied.
First, there are a number of important sociological factors. Technological inno-
vations and the rise of improved global connectedness have played an important
role in alerting potential social entrepreneurs to the need for action. Furthermore,
technology has provided new pathways to empowerment for the individual as a
social actor in the context of the development of a pro-am culture (Leadbeater
2008) and new social media. These innovations have altered the dynamics by which
ideas are generated and disseminated, leading to societal shifts such as the rise of
new localism and the splintering of much established political consensus (Murray
et al 2010). The postglobal crisis landscape also offers a new context for individual
social action as economic priorities are increasingly being judged by more sophisti-
cated measures than nancial criteria alone (Offer 2007).
Secondly, a range of political drivers can be identied, related to the redeni-
tion of the role of the state that began with the rise of neo-conservative politics in
the 1980s. The neoconservative ideological agenda gave preference to free-market
deregulation and privatization, and sought to reduce and reform the state by cut-
ting taxation and rolling back state provision of public goods (Grenier 2009). This
ideological realignment encouraged a more managerialist focus on reforming the
functioning of the state within the framework of the new public management and
reinventing government (Osbourne and Gaebler 1992). Such a shift prioritized
the promotion of more enterprising and entrepreneurial public-sector structures
and behavior, and reached its logical conclusion with the introduction of internal
quasi-markets within state welfare systems (LeGrand 2003). In parallel, a wider
focus on enterprise and individualism across society in general lionized entrepre-
neurs as both economic heroes and strategic management gurus (Dart 2004). In
the 1990s, as third-way (Giddens 1998) politics came to dominate in the United
States and United Kingdom, market action and enterprise became further decou-
pled from business and allowed a new language of social provisioning to emerge
that re-imagined public goods as best delivered by innovation outsidebut con-
tracted tothe state. As a consequence, by 2008, over half of all charitable income
in the United Kingdom came from government contracts (NCVO 2009). These
changes in the political landscape were evident across many countries and funda-
mentally altered the dynamics of the relationships between civil society, the private
sector, and the state in the production and consumption of public goods. The con-
sequence was simultaneously to generate both a range of market failures in the
provision of welfare services and a variety of new opportunities for social innova-
tion in addressing them.
Finally, the economics of civil society have changed signicantly over recent
years. As the number of civil society organizations has grown (Salamon et al 2003),
the resources available from conventional funding sources such as philanthropic

foundations came under increasing pressure, particularly during the economic
recessions of 199091 and 200810. The result was that many civil society organiza-
tions had to become more entrepreneurial in terms of revenue generation, and
increasingly looked to diversify their funding through prot-making opportunities
and new partnerships with the state and the private sector (cf. Kanter 1999). The
tightening of the market for conventional grant income caused civil society organi-
zations to seek out independent revenue streams and to form social enterprises
the commercial model of social entrepreneurship. The development of viable prot
streams also appeared to offer social enterprises the opportunity of greater inde-
pendence from the inuence of grant makers, the ability to innovate more quickly,
and longer-term organizational sustainability. However, the real impacts (good and
bad) of the social enterprise model on civil society are still are matter of debate, and
they require further and much more rigorous research (Dart 2004).
2. Locating Social Entrepreneurship

Today, social entrepreneurship is a uid and contested phenomenon. Indeed, in
some senses, it is a eld of action in search of an established institutional narrative
(Nicholls 2010a). To a large extent, the diversity of discourses and logics that char-
acterize social entrepreneurship reect the internal logics and self-legitimating dis-
courses of a broad range of inuential, resource holding actors who are actively
engaged in building the eld, rather than any particular reality (Nicholls 2010a).
Thus for government, social entrepreneurship is conceptualized as the solution to
state failures in welfare provision (Leadbeater 1997). For civil society, it is conceived
of as a space for new hybrid partnerships (Austin et al 2004), a model of political
transformation and empowerment (Alvord et al 2004), or a driver of systemic social
change (Nicholls 2006). Finally, for business, social entrepreneurship is cast as a
new market opportunity (Karamchandani et al 2009) or a natural development
from socially responsible investment (Freireich and Fulton 2009).
Despite evidence that social entrepreneurship is growing in inuence as a eld
of action, signicant questions remain concerning the denition of its limits and
boundaries, particularly in terms of how broad or narrow its scope should be (Light
2008). Nevertheless, various attempts have been made to resolve some of the deni-
tional questions concerning social entrepreneurship and there is now some broad
agreement that a number of dominant characteristics are present in all such action
(Dees 1998). Firstly, all social entrepreneurship shares a primary, strategic focus on
social or environmental outcomes that will always override other managerial con-
siderations such as prot maximization. Secondly, there is always evidence of inno-
vation and novelty either in challenging normative conceptions of an issue, in the
organizational models and processes that are developed, or in the products and
services that are delivered (and sometimes in all three of these dimensions). Finally,
there is always a strong emphasis on performance measurement and improved
accountability, aligned with a relentless focus on improving the effectiveness of
organizational impact and scale and the durability of outcomes. These three factors
can be further rened under three headings: sociality, innovation, and market ori-
entation (Nicholls and Cho 2006).
The sociality, or social and environmental focus of social entrepreneurship,
can be identied in three aspects of its operation: the macro-level institutional con-
text in which it operates; the organizational micro-processes it employs; and the
focus and nature of its impacts and outcomes. In terms of institutional contexts,
social entrepreneurship is usually associated with six domains focused on the cre-
ation of public goods and positive externalities: welfare and health services (such as
the Aravind eye hospitals in India);1 education and training (such as the Committee
to Democratize Information Technology or CDI in Brazil);2 economic development
(such as work integration social enterprises, or WISEs, in Europe); 3 disaster relief
and international aid (such as Keystones innovative Farmer Voice project); 4 social
justice and political change (including race and gender empowerment, such as
SEWA, the Self-Employed Womens Association in Pakistan); 5 and environmental
planning and management (such as the Marine Stewardship Council).6 With respect
to organizational processes, social entrepreneurs have pioneered innovations that
create new social value in terms of employment practices (by, for example, targeting
excluded populations), supply chain management (such as Fair Trade),7 energy
usage and recycling (such as the Green Thing),8 and nancial structures (includ-
ing Community Interest Companies, co-operatives, and L3C corporations).
Finally, the outcomes of social entrepreneurship are dened by their social or envi-
ronmental impact rather than their nancial returns, with success or failure cali-
brated by outcomes rather than outputs within an explicitly values-driven framework
of analysis (Young 2006).
Innovation, the second dening characteristic of social entrepreneurship,
reects many of the characteristics of similar processes that are found in com-
mercial entrepreneurship. Drawing upon Schumpeter (1911; see also Swedberg
2009), innovation in entrepreneurship is dened by models that achieve macro-
level creative destruction that change systems and realign markets around new
economic equilibriums (Osberg and Martin 2007). Such innovation can range
from incremental changes at the micro-level to disruptive interventions at the
systems level.
Third, the market orientation of social entrepreneurship is most easily recog-
nized in the prot-making business models of social enterprise that earn income by
competing in conventional commercial markets (Alter 2006). However, this descrip-
tion only captures a minority of socially entrepreneurial activity across the globe.9
For the noncommercial organizations in the eld, a market orientation represents a
broader set of issues that encompass a strong and relentless performance focus with
enhanced accountability and an outward-looking strategic perspective. These
aspects of organizational culture are reied in clear and effective impact metrics,
robust systems to empower stakeholder voice, and a competitive attitude to perfor-
mance improvement.
3. The Scope of Social Entrepreneurship

One of the challenges of mapping the eld of social entrepreneurship is that only
limited data are currently available to estimate its global size and structure. This is
largely because unlike in the eld of conventional not-for-prot organizations and
charities, social entrepreneurship is not easily identiable by a single legal form of
incorporation or a distinct scal treatment in any country. Bespoke organizational
forms do exist for social entrepreneurship, such as the Community Interest Company
(CIC) form in the United Kingdom, Social Cooperatives (Types 1 and 2) in Italy,
Social Solidarity Cooperatives in Portugal, and L3C organizations in the United
States, but the eld as a whole includes a wide variety of legal forms, from compa-
nies limited by guarantee, to Publicly Limited Companies (PLC), cooperatives and
even unincorporated voluntary organizations, as well as hybrids that combine sev-
eral of these forms (SEC 2005). For example, Hackney Community Transport
(HCT) group in the United Kingdom includes ve different legal forms across its
subsidiaries.10 As a result, data from national statistics are unhelpful as a source for
delineating the eld.
Nevertheless, other data sources that focus specically on social entrepreneur-
ship and social enterprise can be used to give a snapshot of the eld in different
contexts, notably in the United Kingdom where there has been a high level of insti-
tutional interest in, and support for, the eld. The U.K. government took a lead in
trying to quantify social entrepreneurship by commissioning a scoping survey of
the national landscape of social enterprise in 200405. This survey calculated a total
population of approximately 55,000 social enterprises (Cabinet Ofce 2007), and
also concluded that these organizations constituted 5 percent of all businesses with
employees, had a combined turnover of 27 billion, and contributed 8.4 billion to
the economy each year. A subsequent survey for the U.K. government increased the
estimate of the number of social enterprises to 62,000 across the country, calculat-
ing that small and medium-sized social enterprises contributed 24 billion GVA
(Gross Value Added) to the economy across the period 2005 to 2007 (Williams and
Cowling 2009; SEC 2009).
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey of worldwide entrepre-
neurial activity has included a survey of socially entrepreneurial activity in the
United Kingdom since 2004. This research initially suggested that 6.6 percent of
the total U.K. working population engaged directly with socially entrepreneurial
activity (Harding and Cowling 2004; Harding 2004). However, for various
methodological reasons, this estimate was later revised down to 3.2 percent, or
roughly 1.2 million people, mostly in the form of new start-up organizations
(Harding and Cowling 2006). The same gure grew to 3.3 percent in 2008 (Harding
and Harding 2008). The GEM surveys also suggested that there was a clear bias
towards women compared to men, and a strong ethnic minority bias, with Afro-
Caribbean people being three times more likely to be social entrepreneurs than
whites. The 2010 GEM survey took a worldwide perspective on social entrepre-
neurial activity for the rst time (Bosma and Levie 2010). At a global level, the
overall gures for direct engagement with social entrepreneurship are signi-
cantly lower, averaging between 1.6 percent and 1.9 percent depending on the
region concerned and its level of economic development.
In 2010, Harding (2010) built on the GEM methodology to explore socially
entrepreneurial behavior in mainstream businesses in the United Kingdom. Her
work suggested a population of 232,000 broad social enterprises (dened as
businesses that were designed to make a difference and that reinvested their
surpluses according to their mission), and 109,371 pure social enterprises
(dened as social enterprises that did not pay dividends, yet achieved sales rev-
enues that exceeded 25 percent of their income). Harding suggested that the for-
mer contributed 97 billion and the latter 17.7 billion to the U.K. economy.
Finally, Van Ryzin et al.(2009) expanded the GEM methodology to explore panel
data from the United States and to establish key determinants of socially entre-
preneurial behavior. However, they did not provide any statistically projectable
data.
Information from the leading eld-building actors in social entrepreneurship
also provides relevant data. This evidence shows that more than 1 billion had been
invested directly in over 8,000 socially entrepreneurial organizations globally. It is
notable that of the total capital invested in social entrepreneurship, more than 68
percent came from the U.K. government. Some of the best-established examples of
social entrepreneurship provide further data that demonstrate the scale of this
eld. For example, in terms of development and welfare, the Bangladesh Rural
Advancement Committee (BRAC), founded in 1972, now runs more than 37,000
schools, provides micronance products to over eight million poor people, engages
80,000 health volunteers, employs 120,000 workers, and serves over 100 million
people (Dees 2010). In terms of social enterprise, the Fair Trade movement now
generates more than 2 billion of sales from certied products worldwide and ben-
ets more than seven million people across more than sixty countries (Nicholls
2010c). In terms of policy interventions, the U.K. government has invested more
than 700 million directly into social enterprises (excluding contracts) since 2000,
and other countries, such as the United States and Australia, are now following
suit. Finally, evidence from organizations that support social entrepreneurship
also suggests a vibrant and growing community: Ashokas global Fellowship now
numbers over 2000 members and, since 2001, UnLtd in the United Kingdom has
supported more than 3,000 social entrepreneurs to initiate projects and take them
to scale.
4. Conclusion
This chapter has suggested that social entrepreneurship represents a new, impor-
tant, and growing subsector of civil society. It also proposes that this new eld
encompasses a variety of sector-blurring discourses that are being driven by signi-
cant institutional changes in modern societies. Research suggests that social entre-
preneurship is something of an umbrella term for a wide variety of organizational
forms and activities, but also that boundaries can be set for the eld in terms of the
presence of three qualifying factors at the organizational level: sociality, innovation,
and market orientation.
However, despite evidence that social entrepreneurship is making an important
difference globally (see for example, Ashoka 2010), there are also a number of cri-
tiques of the eld that need to be taken into account (see also Grenier 2009). Firstly,
research into social entrepreneurship remains in its infancy (Short et al. 2009). As
such, robust data on the specic effectiveness of socially entrepreneurial outcomes
and impacts remains underdeveloped, particularly in terms of deadweight calcula-
tions and counterfactual analysis. These gaps may give rise to a suspicion that social
entrepreneurship is merely acting as an ill-proven proxy for improved outcome
measurement in the social sector. Furthermore, in the absence of a convincing epis-
temological account of its distinctive value, the legitimacy of the eld in a paradig-
matic sense remains in some jeopardy (Kuhn 1962; Suchman 1995).
Secondly, the emphasis on the hero social entrepreneur appears to be as much
a cultural product of those who propagate it as a reection of the reality of the eld
(Lounsbury and Strang 2009; Nicholls 2010a). At least two other distinct categories of
social entrepreneur can be discerned beyond the charismatic hero model that has
received a disproportionate amount of foundation and media attention: managerial-
ist social entrepreneurs, and community-based social entrepreneurs (Grenier
2009). The former category represents individuals who are skilled at managing hybrid
organizations that deliver above-average levels of social-value creation (often bal-
anced with nancial-value creation), and who are often re-skilled voluntary sector
managers. The latter category reimagines the individual within a community as a
dynamic change agent, and stresses the importance of local structuresrather than
top-down actionin bringing about meaningful and context-specic social change
and social impact (Yujuico 2008). Moreover, it seems likely that networks and organi-
zations that do not have charismatic leaders contribute far more to the landscape of
social entrepreneurship than is suggested by the level of publicity they have received.
The enduring impact and local signicance of socially entrepreneurial cooperatives
such as Mondragon in northern Spain is evidence of this observation.11
The institutional inuence of certain eld building actors in social entrepre-
neurship is also evident in some accounts of the eld that are characterized by an
overemphasis on the importance of business models, an overemphasis that appears
to dismiss the logical proposition that business has as much to learn from civil soci-
ety as civil society does from business (Edwards 2010). Moreover, such accounts of
social entrepreneurship sideline the importance of political action in systems

change, ignoring the historical evidence that shows that societal change is best
achieved in tandem with social movements and by engaging with political struc-
tures (Davis et al 2005). Many social entrepreneurs across the world endorse this
view, from Martin Burt of Fundacin Paraguaya, for example,12 to Harriet Lamb of
the Fair Trade Foundation.13 However, some commentators and eld-building
organizationsparticularly those based in the United Statesdo not always agree
that addressing politics at both the formal and informal levels is central to the long-
term impact of social entrepreneurship (Osberg and Martin 2007).
Finally, there has yet to be any serious attention given to the dark side of social
entrepreneurshipfor example, in terms of the impacts of social enterprises that fail
(Tracey and Jarvis 2006), and the potential that exists for crowding out existing civil
society organizations and their support base. Furthermore, why should it automati-
cally be assumed that social entrepreneurship always achieves positive outcomes?
Under the tripartite denition suggested above, organizations as diverse as the Ku
Klux Klan in the United States in the 1960s, the National Socialist Party in Germany
in the 1930s, and the contemporary mega-churches in the United States could all be
considered examples of social entrepreneurship, though the impact of all three would
appear strongly negative to many. In this context, it should be noted that by no means
all actors across civil society have embraced social entrepreneurship; indeed to many
activists and voluntary-sector leaders, the eld remains controversial and potentially
threatening. This is, at least to some extent, because some of the logics of social entre-
preneurship appear to challenge the established rationales for civil society (see
Clotfelter 1992), particularly in terms of cross-sector hybrids such as social enterprise
and venture philanthropy (Dart 2004; Edwards 2010).
For all these caveats, social entrepreneurship clearly brings an important new
dimension to debates about civil society and its importance. In contrast to more
established social organizations, the range of institutional discourses that are con-
tained within social entrepreneurship give it a strategic advantage in terms of ex-
ibility, adaptation, and speed of response to the complex market failures that
characterize modern, global social and environmental issues. The eld of social
entrepreneurship is still developing, and its eventual scale, size, and impact are dif-
cult to predict with precision. Nevertheless, it is already clear that the logics and
models of social entrepreneurship have signicantly recalibrated perceptions of the
scope of civil society, its boundaries, and the potential impact it can achieve in the
future.
NOTES
1. See www.aravind.org.
2. See www.cdi.org.br.
3. See Nyssens (2006).
4. See www.aline.org.uk/farmervoice.
5. See www.sewa.org.
6. See www.msc.org.
7. See www.fairtrade.net and www.wfto.com.
8. See www.dothegreenthing.com.
9. Almost all the social entrepreneurs supported by the Skoll Foundation, for
example, are not-for-prots.
10. See www.hctgroup.org/index.php?sectionid=1.
11. See www.mondragon-corporation.com.
12. See www.fundacionparaguaya.org.py.
13. See www.fairtrade.org.uk.
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chapter 8
GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY
lisa jordan
Most of the academic literature on global civil society maps its structural parame-
ters or reviews its impact on specic social problems like poverty or environmental
degradation (Florini 2000; Salamon 2004). By contrast, this chapter posits that
global civil society should be understood as a force for democratic change, one
which is implicitly making claims to global citizenship. Through protest and advo-
cacy across national borders, activists in global civil society are assuming the rights
and responsibilities of citizens, and while falling short of forcing the adoption of
formal democratic structures, they and the networks, movements, and organiza-
tions in which they operate do promote transparency, accountability, and public
participation in the evolving arrangements of global governance. In this sense,
global civil society has promoted greater subsidiarity between local, national,
regional, and global political arenas, thereby moving global governance one step
closer to the governed. It has forced global institutions to recognize that technical
deliberations and the standards they produce are forms of decision making with
public responsibilities. And it has shown that, even in the absence of a global gov-
ernment, civil society can play a valuable role in democratizing the international
regimes of the present and the future.
1. Does Global Civil Society Exist?

Over the past ten years, scholars have vigorously debated whether the fact that
increasing numbers of people are associating with each other across national bor-
ders constitutes a global civil society. It is certainly true that people are organizing
to address issues that concern them in multiple political arenaslocal, national,
and international. But it is not clear that cross-border activism represents a genuine
sense of global community, a global civic culture, or the emergence of global
citizenshipas opposed to set of national interests that are increasingly active in
the global arena. Skeptics argue that civil society can only exist in relation to a state;
that new global social movements are predominantly nationally oriented; that those
citizen formations that do exist between nation states are insufciently global in
their character and focus; and that global civil society is a Western construct (Tarrow
2005; Anheier 2003). Many intergovernmental organizations such as the Organ-
ization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) equate international nongovernmental organizations
(INGO)s with global civil society, which further confuses the conceptual terrain.
Civil society has been dened in at least three ways: as the forms of associational
life, such as NGOs, labor unions, social movements, and churches (Edwards 2009;
Salamon 2004); as the norms of the good society, dened by values such as coopera-
tion, nonviolence, and tolerance (Keane 2003); and as an arena for public delibera-
tion, consisting of spaces that are relatively autonomous from both states and
markets (Scholte 2000). These three denitions are also useful in considering the
global arena.
Global civil society includes multiple forms of association such as international
networks, social movements, and campaigns; international federations and confed-
erations of churches, professional, and business associations; cross-border
membership-based organizations of the poor; and nongovernmental organizations
that are oriented towards the global arena. Unfortunately, there is no research that
provides a reliable overview of the relative scale and density of these different forms
of association (Anheier 2003, 2007). Only international NGOs have been studied in
any depth (Union of International Associations 2010), and there is active debate
within academia on whether other kinds of cross-border associations actually exist,
especially global social movements (Tarrow 2005; Smith 2008). But it is known that
over 60,000 NGOs and civic networks already operate on the international stage, 90
percent of which have been formed since 1970 (Edwards 2009, 23).
Normative denitions concentrate on the meaning of the civil as a positive
moral force in international affairs, and as a mechanism through which new global
norms are developed around universal human rights, international cooperation on
global problems like climate change and poverty, and the peaceful resolution of
national differences in the global arena. In this sense, global civil society is inter-
preted as a mechanism for the development of social compacts or contracts across
national borders that solidify principled international action on common themes
and priorities (Keane 2003; Kaldor 2003). Clearly, however, the forms of global civil
society do not convey or carry a standard set of norms. As Bob (2005) and others
have pointed out, global civil society is home to conservative and progressive inter-
ests, religious and secular groups, violent and nonviolent social action.
This is why a global public sphere or set of spheres is so important, providing
the spaces in which different visions of globalization and conicting global norms
can be argued out, andin the best manifestations of this processmoving towards
global civil society 95
an increasing cross-border consensus. Such spaces include open-access websites like

Wikipedia and openDemocracy, new events and networks such as the World
Economic Forum and the World Social Forum, global festivals organized by com-
munities of practice to celebrate their identities and achievements such as the Fez
Festival of Sacred Music, and international conferences which bring different inter-
est groups together. Since the creation of the United Nations, civic associations have
organized across national boundaries around issues of peace, social justice, and the
environment. The World Federalist Movement,1 for example, argued for a global
government as early as 1937 to secure international peace, and began to emphasize
building democracy on a global scale ten years later. Environmental organizations
have organized globally to address the need for a common policy framework to
preserve and protect natural resources since the early 1960s. And in the 1990s, the
United Nations organized a series of global summits to address problems such as
environmental degradation and discrimination, which acted as a catalyst for global
civil society development (Pianta 2005).
Combining elements from each of these three denitions, Anheier (2007) con-
cludes that global civil society is the sphere of ideas, values, institutions, organiza-
tions, networks, and individuals that are based upon civility; are located between
the family, the state, and the market; and operate beyond the connes of national
societies, polities, and economies. This denition is useful in dening the universe
of actors that is concerned with affecting power and politics in the global political
arena, but has a normative frame that limits its applicability. Nevertheless, while
these norms may be contested, it is clear that global civil society is slowly emerging
over time in all three of these guises, and will grow stronger as they continue to
intertwine.
2. Global Governance and Global

Civil Society
The arrangements of global governance are proliferating in a wide variety of issue
areas and forums around the making and implementation of rules and the exercise
of political power across national borders, though not necessarily by entities autho-
rized by any general agreement to act (Keohane 2003). Global civil society is orga-
nizing to inuence those who are exercising power in these ways, including INGOs
like Oxfam and Greenpeace, global social movements like Via Campesina, and time-
bound transnational actions such as the International Campaign to Ban Land
Mines, the Global Campaign Against Poverty, and the Jubilee Debt Relief campaigns
of the late 1990s, all of which had some impact on global public policy. Orchestrated,
coordinated global protests and mass demonstrations have also been mounted
around the war in Iraqfor example, to counter the ofcial coalition of the willing
in 2003. And identity-based solidarity groups are increasingly assuming citizenship
rights at the global level, such as indigenous communities who succeeded in gaining
recognition through the United Nations in 2008 after thirty years of trying, when
the General Assembly passed the Declaration on Indigenous Peoples.
Most of these examples can be characterized as attempts to create new social
contracts that reect the realities of an increasingly interconnected world, in order
to address the impact of globalization on social and economic conditions. Scholte
(2011) calls these actions enactments of citizenship, that is, they are practices
through which people claim rights and fulll responsibilities as members of a given
polity. Global civil society activists recognize three realities that stem from Scholtes
observation. First, that representative government at the national level is not a suf-
ciently effective arrangement to address domestic or cross-border social problems.
Second, that representative governance does not naturally extend to the global
arena. And third, that in order to resolve local problems, people sometimes have to
organize globally. These realities speak to a new level of maturity in global civil
society in formally positioning itself in relation to the institutions and processes of
cross-border governance, which are fullling many of the functions that previously
were undertaken at the national level. As this process evolves, members of global
civil society are assuming the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. But when
global civil society engages with intergovernmental institutions or organizations
like the Bank for International Settlements, the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers, or the Global Fund for Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS,
in what ways are they acting as global citizens?
First, their actions assume that intergovernmental organizations are governing
bodies. This assumption alone has shifted the attitudes and practices of many global
institutions. International trade experts, economists, and bankers do not perceive
themselves as governing in the formal sense, yet when the institutions for which
they work (such as the IMF and the WTO) build in mechanisms for public consul-
tation, disclosure, and accountability, they inevitably assume some of the responsi-
bilities of governance. Evidence of this shift is already visible in the mechanisms
these institutions have established to communicate and respond to the public, for
example, and in demands for whistleblower policies from staff associations in the
United Nations and the Asian Development Bank (GAP 2005).2 Naming global
bodies as institutions of governance makes it more difcult for them to deny the
power and impact they undoubtedly have. Exposing power relations within and
between them has made it easier for civil society to claim citizenship rights, but it
has also empowered governments to reect on the growing role of intergovernmen-
tal organizations, discuss the consequences of ceding sovereignty to global entities,
and argue for the right to maintain policy space, which became a rallying cry
among Southern governments in the Doha Round of WTO trade negotiations.
Secondly, it is increasingly recognized that global institutions bear an obliga-
tion to respond to those who are affected by their decisions. Almost all the intergov-
ernmental organizations that have been targeted by civil society advocacy campaigns
have subsequently instituted formal policies on transparency and public consulta-
tion. The exception is the Bank for International Settlements, which remains a
veritable fortress of secrets. Consultation with affected communities is a commonly

accepted practice in the Multilateral Development Banks and at the International
Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (Clark Fox, and Treakle 2003). The call for greater
consultation was the impetus behind the development of the Internet Governance
Forum and of the creation of seats for civil society representatives on the Board of
the Global Fund for Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. Even transnational cor-
porations are developing mechanisms for community consultation. Ironically, the
weakest efforts in this respect have come from INGOs, who are only beginning to
review their consultation methods with the communities with whom they work
(One World Trust 2007).
Third, in some instances, global activists have argued that international institu-
tions must respond to them as taxpayers and constituents of shareholder govern-
ments, a tactic applied by Northern NGOs to the International Financial Institutions
in particular. By challenging these institutions in this way, NGOs have successfully
made the case for policy change.3 Given that the citizens of middle income coun-
tries such as Brazil and China are in effect nancing the operations of many global
institutions through interest repayments on their loans, similar campaigns for tax-
based accountability may arise in Southern countries in the future.
Fourth, global civil society activists insist that decisions should be taken in the
public domainthat is, that they should be readily visible to all the relevant pub-
lics. This assumption has led to the emergence of transparency policies in most of
the institutions where civil society has made this demand (The Bank for Inter-
national settlements, again, is a noteworthy exception). Fifth, even if a group or
community is not directly affected by the actions of an international institution,
they may feel that they have the right to air their voices in the debate as informed
members of the public who bring valuable experience and expertise to the table.
Sixth, where governance arrangements are open to formal participation by multiple
stakeholders, activists have demanded the right to a vote, not just a voice. The Global
Fund for Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS, for example, already includes civil
society in its board. Clearly, standing for ofce in nondemocratic governance struc-
tures poses serious challenges of legitimacy, accountability, and representation for
INGOs and global social movements (Peruzzoti 2006, Charnovitz 2006), but even
though these questions have not yet been answered, the presence of civic activists in
the governance arrangements of international bodies does deepen the debate
around their evolving democratic nature.
All these citizenship claims are congruent with the rights and responsibilities
of citizens in democratic societies at the national level. Even though no formal
mechanisms of democratic practice exist beyond the nation-state (i.e., no represen-
tation, voting, or political parties), global civil society is increasingly arguing that it
should be afforded democratic rights that are prefaced on the underlying principles
of democratic practice, namely transparency in the process of exercising power;
participation by affected peoples in the process of establishing policies; and down-
ward accountability of the governors to the governed.
3. The Impact of Global Civil Society

Thus far, the impact of global civil society on democracy in global governance has
been limited. Citizens cannot vote for their representatives to the UN General
Assembly or the Board of the IMF, or indeed to any other global body. The indepen-
dent, cross-border judiciaries that have been formed in response to global civil soci-
ety pressure, such as the International Court of Justice, do not act as a check or
balance against the power of the UN or the WTO, and no international institution
operates on formal mechanisms of representative democracy.
However, global civil society has been effective in promoting democratic prin-
ciples and operating procedures in international organizations, especially in three
areas: the accountability of governors to the governed; transparency in public policy
deliberations and outcomes; and public participation in policy formation. This pic-
ture is complicated by the fact that each of these principles can be realized with
negative impacts on democracyas when accountability is only exercised upwards
to a higher authority, for example (Scholte, 2011). Transparency, in and of itself, is a
necessary but insufcient value for democratic practice (Fox and Brown 1998).
Participation, if not undertaken with specic mechanisms to encourage the involve-
ment of marginalized or minority populations, can reinforce hierarchy and patriar-
chy. Therefore, each principle has to be carefully qualied and specied in particular
contexts in order to increase its democratic effects.
a. Transparency
Global civil society has pushed for transparency in the operating procedures of
international institutions since the early 1980s in an effort to illuminate how power
is exercised inside and between them (Fox and Brown 1998). Greater transparency
has resulted in the reinforcement of democratic rights when, for example, freedom
of information laws have been extended to transactions between international insti-
tutions and national governments. Such was the case in Mexico and Brazil when
civil society groups worked simultaneously at the national and global levels to force
the World Bank and the IMF to release documents pertaining to loans made in
those countries.4 Subsequently, members of parliament in Brazil and activists in
Mexico were able to challenge the terms of loans from the World Bank and the
IMF.
In 2007, disagreements over agriculture halted global trade negotiations at the
World Trade Organization, and the Doha Development Round has yet to resume.
Developing country governments refused to sign the WTO agreement because they
had been educated by global civil society activists on the details of agricultural sub-
sidies enjoyed by industrialized nations. These subsidies on cotton, sugar, peanuts,
butter, and other dairy products were exactly what developing country governments
thought were necessary for their own development, but they were blocked in the
WTO negotiations by the United States and the European Union. Outrage over
these double standards was widely credited for bringing the negotiations to a halt.
By illuminating the links between national and global policies, the likelihood of
greater public disclosure and transparency in future trade negotiations has been
increased.
A third example of transparency lies in gradual reforms at the United Nations,
where the selection and nomination processes for senior ofcials are shrouded in
secrecy. Civic activists in the World Federalist Movement have been successful in
convincing governments to be more transparent about potential nominees, in the
wake of disappointing performances by many UN ofcials. These activists argued
that ofcials with greater public backing would stand a better chance of taking on
the power of the Security Council than those with no public legitimacy.5 As a result,
the UN is gradually opening up the process of nomination to public scrutiny.
b. Participation
The right of citizens to participate in governance lies at the heart of democracy, and
action by global civil society has resulted in many marginalized communities being
able to participate in global governance for the rst time. For example, urban slum
dwellers now participate in UN habitat meetings and on the governing council of
the Cities Alliance, a World Bank-organized donor consortium. So-called safeguard
policies at the Asian Development Bank are now written to protect those who are
affected by projects from any unintended consequences. Most often, these are
minority communities. At the UN, the inclusion of gender considerations in the
Financing for Development negotiations was a huge victory, because the impact of
development policies on womens lives is rarely taken into account. Similarly, the
UN Peace Building Commission has formally extended invitations to local NGOs
working in conict zones to participate in consultations, and has established a
working group to develop a formal mechanism for local NGO involvement in global
plans to address future conicts.
Most of the policies championed by global civil society allow for the general
public or their elected representatives to participate, and are not specically designed
to empower marginalized communities, but these efforts can still be important.
They include efforts to promote participation by parliamentarians, who constitute
an important piece of a more democratic framework for governing the United
Nations (Cardoso 2004).6 Internet governance arrangements provide another tar-
get. In May of 2008, the U.S. National Institute for Science and Technology and a
special deployment group of U.S. Homeland Security Department contractors pro-
posed a new method of implementing a technical standard for authenticating and
encrypting internet addresses. The proposal would have solidied U.S. authority
over the internet by handing control of encryption keys to the Department of
Homeland Security. Civil society activists who were monitoring internet gover-
nance realized the implications of this highly technical issue, alerted other govern-
ments to the implications (notably Canada, Germany, and Brazil), and proposed an
alternative international repository which became the preferred solution (Internet

Governance Project 2008).
c. Accountability
Accountability in the global political arena is complex. Essentially, the key questions
are as follows: does action by global civil society bind the powers of an institution to
the rule of law? Does it strengthen the responsibilities of the governors to the gov-
erned? Does it achieve redress when the rights of an individual or a community have
been violated? Does it limit the abuse of political power? And are economic, social,
cultural, and political rights recognized at the transnational level (Fox and Brown
1998)? In other words, the key questions are accountability to whom, and for what.
In global trade negotiations, for example, Our World is Not for Sale, a global
social movement, pressed the Ofce of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to
accept that it was accountable to elected representatives operating at the local level
within the United States, thus reinforcing principles of federalism and subsidiarity.
The USTR had always taken for granted that it had the authority to negotiate on
behalf of states within the United States, but it had never conferred with state rep-
resentatives over the implications of trade negotiations in the global arena. The
ofce even balked at conferring with the U.S. Congress, and for many years fast-
track legislation suspended the power of Congress to contest specic trade provi-
sions. In effect, USTR had no checks on its power and could negotiate whatever it
felt to be in the U.S. national interest. Starting in early 2003, global activists began to
educate state representatives such as attorneys general, governors, and state legisla-
tors on the specic provisions of the trade negotiations that were embedded in the
WTO and bilateral trade agreements. The outcomes have been dramatic. Nineteen
states have either opted out completely or given specic instructions to the USTR
on how to represent their interests in international negotiations, forcing the
USTR to reconsider, and in some cases renegotiate, many of its favored positions.
After neutralizing Congress as a force for accountability, USTR is now forced to
negotiate down the political system in order to secure the support of elected of-
cials at the state level.
Accountability mechanisms at the United Nations are weak, but those that do
exist have been developed in response to global civil society pressure. They include
a whistleblower protection policy and the acknowledgment of Northern govern-
ments legal responsibility to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
Accountability outcomes in the international nancial institutions have been a little
more promising, reecting many years of global civil society pressure to establish
the impact of their activities on the poor, and push them to provide redress when
institutional policies are violated. The bulk of these actions have been oriented
towards creating mechanisms that offer compensation to communities that are
impacted negatively by investments undertaken by these institutions (Clark, Fox,
Treakle 2003). Broader victories include the removal of Paul Wolfowitz from his
position as the president of the World Bank in 2007, an action that was ultimately
successful as a result of rising internal and external pressure when violations of the
Banks own policies were made public.7
4. Democracy in Global Civil Society

Global civil society has already begun to exercise a positive inuence in democratiz-
ing global governance, but it would be even more effective if it could address two
main problems that weaken its potential. The rst problem concerns the elite nature
of global civil societymeaning the lack of genuine grassroots participation in
transnational networks, especially from the global South. This produces a limited
pool of leaders, decreases accountability to mass-based constituencies, and encour-
ages fragmentation along geographic or issue-based lines. Elitism makes it difcult
for global civil society to defend itself against criticism from governments who
question the legitimacy of groups who are active in the global arena. It also allows
governments or intergovernmental bodies to create quasi-NGOs and then send
them to international negotiations as civil society representatives.
The second major problem is that global civil society networks rarely address
their own internal power relations or reect on the dilemmas of cross-border
organizing and how best to address them. One cannot assume that global civil
society is entirely democratic. The roles it has played are premised on well-
developed privileges of citizenship as dened in a national political context, and
while civil society has been adamant in extending the rights of citizenship into the
global political arena, it has been less forthcoming in dening the responsibilities
that go with them. Extending democratic principles into global governance
requires that all of the actors in the global political arena acknowledge a balance
between the rights and responsibilities of participation. This remains an enor-
mous challenge ( Jordan and Van Tuijl 2000). Power differentials arise through
proximity to decision makers, the possession of superior forms of knowledge,
unequal access to resources, varying levels of experience in organizing, and a host
of other issues. Larger groups often have more power than smaller groups; and
organizations from the global North have better access to powerful gures or
information from ofcial sources. But groups in the global South may have greater
moral authority, access to specic details on the impacts of decisions, and some-
times better access to nancial resources than their smaller counterparts from the
global North.
Addressing these inequalities requires networks, coalitions, and individual
civil society organizations to acknowledge and deal explicitly with the difcult
issues of accountability, transparency, and representation within their own struc-
tures. Weak internal democracy can undermine the legitimacy of civil society
organizations and global civil society as a whole, and entails precious resources
being expended on the same issues over and over again. Battles over participation,
for example, are refought in the context of every new institution or regime for
global governance. Best practices are not carried over from one issue or segment of
global civil society to anotherfor example, from human rights to the environ-
ment or trade. Civic associations following the World Summit on the Information
Society and the Millennium Summit fought the same battle for the right to partici-
pate in total isolation from each other. Legal precedents are not recognized either
by civil society or by intergovernmental organizations, in large part because there
are very few groups that work across issues and constituencies. More concerted
action in these areas is crucial.
5. Conclusion
Has the aggregate of global civil society inuence reached a tipping point in reform-
ing global governance? Clearly not, since that tipping point would only be reached
when those charged with crafting new institutional arrangements understand
themselves to be governors in the formal sense of that term, accept that they must
make arrangements to consult and otherwise engage with the relevant publics, build
in provisions for transparency from the outset, and create concrete accountability
mechanisms. In some issue areas and intergovernmental organizations, some of
these lessons have already been well-attended to. Trade negotiators, for example, are
aware of their responsibilities, and both the UN and the international nancial
institutions have recognized that building their legitimacy with the public will help
them in improving their performance and securing more resources.
These examples, and the accumulation of a rich body of research, indicate
that global civil society is generally a positive force for democracy. Global civil
society activists have achieved widespread public recognition for the notion that
global governance is not just a technical matter for bureaucrats to resolve. By
clarifying the nature of international institutions, civil society actors have cre-
ated a sharper focus around demands for public accountability. And by challeng-
ing and clarifying the relationships between multiple governing authorities,
global civil society has contributed to subsidiarity, the organizing principle that
matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized compe-
tent authority.8 Participatory democracy at the global level both requires and can
strengthen participatory democracy at the local and national levels. Perhaps the
most telling example of this process at work has been the success of states within
the United States in forcing the U.S. Trade Representative to renegotiate trade
provisions within the WTO. When global governance arrangements run too far
ahead of the populations they are supposed to serve, they can be reeled back
through democratic means.
Civic engagement in global governance is increasingly supported by ofcial
bodies. The Group of Eight forum (G8), for example, spends millions of dollars on
public consultations after having rejected this idea completely in its earlier years.9
While civic associations are loath to lend legitimacy to the G8 itself, this is what
consultation createsa lesson that has not been lost when new regimes have been
negotiated around climate change, communicable diseases, and the future of the
Internet. In all three cases, global civil society has a seat at the negotiating table.
Global civil society has also forced international institutions to develop account-
ability mechanisms that at least hint at the right of redress when basic human rights
have been violated. Although these trends are fragile and limited in their effects,
they represent potentially important breakthroughs that can be built on. The tip-
ping point for democracy in global governance has not been reached, but every-
where that global civil society is engaged in claiming citizenship rights, it is likely
that governance will become more democratic over time.
NOTES
1. See http://www.reformtheun.org.
2. See also www.itransparency.org.
3. See www.economicjustice.net.
4. See www.itransparency.org.
5. See www.reformtheun.org.
6. See also www.reformtheun.org.
7. See www.worldbankpresident.org.
8. In international affairs, subsidiarity is presently best known as a fundamental
principle of European Union law. According to this principle, the EU may only act
(i.e., make laws) where member states agree that action of individual countries is
insufcient. The principle was established in the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, and is
contained within the proposed new treaty establishing a constitution for Europe. However,
at the local level it was already a key element of the European Charter of Local Self-
Government, an instrument of the Council of Europe promulgated in 1985 (see article 4,
paragraph 3 of the Charter).
9. The Group of Eight consists of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom,
the United States, Canada, and Russia.
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part iii
GEOGRAPHICAL
PERSPECTIVES
chapter 9
CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE

UNITED STATES
theda skocpol
Democracy in the United States has long been admired by much of the worldand
not just for its constitutional liberties and participatory elections. From early in the
nations history, Americans were preeminent organizers and joiners of voluntary asso-
ciations that shape and supplement the activities of government (Schlesinger 1944). In
the 1890s, Lord Bryce (1895, 278) observed that associations are created, extended,
and worked in the United States more . . . effectively than in any other country. Bryce
echoed earlier observations by Alexis de Tocqueville ([183540] 1969), who visited the
New World in the 1830s; and Bryce also foreshadowed the eventual ndings of survey
studies such as Almond and Verbas The Civic Culture (1963), which documented the
unusual proclivity of Americans for participation in voluntary groups.
Although American voluntary groups have always been celebrated, their character-
istics and political effects are not well understood. Understanding of U.S. civic history
has been especially hazyand as a result, scholars have been ill-equipped to grasp the
momentous reorganization of U.S. associational life that took place in the late twentieth
century. Between the late 1960s and the 1990s, Americans launched more nationally vis-
ible voluntary entities than ever before in the nations history. They thus remained pre-
eminent civic organizers. But late twentieth and early twenty-rst century Americans
simultaneously ceased to be such avid joinersespecially because they pulled back from
organizing and participating in membership associations that built bridges across places
and brought citizens together across lines of class and occupation.
To get a handle on civic reorganization in recent times, it helps to start with a
snapshot of classic U.S. civic democracy, glimpsing the deep roots of the sorts of
interest groups and voluntary organizations that held sway around 1950. In this
chapter I highlight the major civic transformations that unfolded after 1960 and
probe their impact on the broader workings of contemporary American
democracy.
110 geographical perspectives
1. Classic American Civil Society

From the point of view of sheer numbers of groups, business associations predomi-
nated in the mid-twentieth-century United States. Groups representing businesses
or business people constituted about half of all nationally visible associations in
1950 and more than 40 percent in 1960 (Fox 1952; Skocpol 2003, 14647). Yet if we
examine voluntary groups with large individual memberships, we see another side
of mid-century civic life. Compared to citizens of Britain and Germanythe two
other advanced industrial nations surveyed in Almond and Verba (1963)mid-
century Americans of both genders and all educational levels were more likely to
join and hold ofce in voluntary associations. What is more, Americans were
involved in distinctive types of groups. Americans, Britons, and Germans joined
occupationally based associations at roughly equal levels (although the British were
more often members of labor unions and did not join farm groups), and respon-
dents of all three nationalities were comparably involved in social and charitable
groups. But Americans were unusually likely to claim one or more memberships in
church-related associations, civic political groups, and fraternal groupsand were
also signicantly involved in cooperative and military veterans associations. The
fraternal category especially stands out, in that Almond and Verba tallied it only for
the U.S. case.
In short, as late as the early 1960s, Americans were avid participants in what I call
fellowship associationsgroups emphasizing and expressing solidarity among citizens,
or among brothers or sisters who see themselves as joined together in shared moral
undertakings. In 1955, more than two dozen very large membership federations
enrolled between one and 12 percent of American adults apiece (Skocpol 2003, 13031).
Rooted in dense networks of state and local chapters that gave them a presence in com-
munities across the nation, major fraternal groups, religious groups, civic associations,
and veterans associations predominated among very large membership associations
(apart from the AFL-CIO). Beyond very large groups, smaller nationwide membership
federations also ourished in the immediate post World War II eraincluding elite
service groups such as Rotary and the Soroptimists; civic associations such as the
League of Women Voters; and dozens of fellowship and cooperative federations with
memberships restricted to African Americans or to particular ethnic groups.
Most of the business associations that were so numerous in the 1950s and early
1960s grew up over the course of the twentieth century; and the same was true of
professional associations, which were also numerous by mid-century. But massive,
popularly rooted fellowship federations had much deeper historical roots. They
started to proliferate in the edgling United States between the American Revolution
and the Civil War, and then experienced explosive growth in the late nineteenth
century, as civic organizerssome of whom had met during the Civil War
strugglesfanned out across the United States, organizing state and local chapters
in every nook and cranny of a growing nation. Millions of nineteenth-century
Americans joined womens federations, fraternal and veterans groups, and reform
civil society in the united states 111
crusades. By the early twentieth century, the kinds of membership groups that had
the most consistent presence, apart from churches, in towns and cities of all sizes
were chapters of nation-spanning fellowship federations (Gamm and Putnam 1999,
52627; Skocpol, Ganz, and Munson 2000, 53536).
As the United States industrialized between the 1870s and the 1920san era
during which business and professional groups and labor unions grew in this coun-
try as they did in other industrializing nationsfellowship federations remained a
strong presence (though particular organizations came and went). In addition to
the Civil War, World Wars I and II promoted the growth of fellowship federations,
which worked closely with the federal government to mobilize Americans for wars
(Skocpol et al. 2002). In an important sense, the United States continued preindus-
trial patterns of civic voluntarism through much of the industrial era, adding occu-
pational and class-specic associations to its universe of associations while retaining
older cross-class federations.
Fellowship associations usually claimed nonpartisanship, yet were often
involved in public affairs. Half to two-thirds of the twenty largest membership asso-
ciations of the 1950s were directly involved in legislative campaigns or public cru-
sades of one sort or another (Skocpol 2003, 2628). This is perhaps obvious for the
AFL-CIO and the Farm Bureau Federation. But beyond these, the Parent-Teacher
Association (PTA) and the General Federation of Womens Clubs were active in a
variety of legislative campaigns having to do with educational and family issues,
following long traditions in womens civic activism (Skocpol 1992). The Fraternal
Order of Eagles championed Social Security and other federal social programs
(Davis 1948). And the American Legion drafted and lobbied for the GI Bill of 1944
(Bennett 1996, Skocpol 1997).
2. Contemporary Civic Reorganizations

Three intertwined transformations fundamentally remade American civic life after
the mid-1960s. In the rst place, business groups gained in absolute numbers, but in
the entire universe of groups, they lost ground compared to public interest groups
such as environmental associations, pro-choice and pro-life groups, human rights
groups, family values groups, and good government groups. As the total number of
national associations rose from about 6,000 in 1960 to about 23,000 in 1990, the
share of business associations shrank from 42 percent to 17.5 percent, while groups
focused on social welfare and public affairs burgeoned from 6 percent to 17 per-
cent (Skocpol 2003, 14647). The balance of organized voices in U.S. public affairs
shifted markedly, as new public interest groups spoke for more causes and constitu-
encies than ever before (Berry 1999, Hayes 1986).
Secondly, once-hefty blue-collar trade unions and fellowship federations went
into sharp decline (Putnam 2000, 54). Mass memberships shrank, and networks of
chapters grew sparse. Tellingly, however, elite professional societies experienced

much less decline than popularly rooted membership organizations (see Skocpol
2004, 74950).
Finally, voluntary groups founded in the 1970s and 1980s adopted new forms of
organization. Somesuch as public law groups, think tanks, foundations, and
political action committeesare not membership groups at all. Many others are
staff-centered associations that have few, if any, chapters, and recruit most support-
ers individually via the mail or media messages. With a few exceptionssuch as the
thirty-ve-million-member American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)
most contemporary mailing-list groups have followings in the tens to hundreds of
thousands, not millions (Smith 1992; Putnam 2000, 450).
Recently proliferating associations have other telling features. Even when they
claim substantial numbers of adherents, they rarely have chapters, or they have very
sparse networks of subnational afliates (Berry 1977, 42; Putnam 2000, 51). In addi-
tion, many recently founded or expanding groups, such as environmental associa-
tions, have become more heavily invested in professional stafng (Baumgartner and
Jones 1993, 18789; Shaiko 1999, 12).
To the degree that there is any exception to the civic transformations I have
just recounted, it is on the conservative side of U.S. civil society. Professionally
managed advocacy groups have proliferated across the board, but present-day con-
servatives have done more than liberals to renew or reinvent massively large, popu-
larly rooted federations. The National Right to Life Committee, the Christian
Coalition, and the National Rie Association are all extensive chapter-based mem-
bership federations that have ourished in recent times; and the Tea Party move-
ment is a very recent addition to this panoply. Inspired by moral and ideological
worldviews, conservative populist federations have recruited people across class
lines through church networks or sports clubs, linking local units to one another
and into the penumbra of the Republican Party (Guth et al. 1995; McCarthy 1987).
The one unabashedly liberal membership federation to experience comparable
massive growth in recent decades is the National Education Association, a teachers
union.
3. The Roots of Civic Reorganization

Why did Americas associational universe change so sharply in the late twentieth
century? Some scholars argue that gradual changes in the choices made by masses
of Americans are the principal reason for civic shifts (Putnam 2000). This is part of
the explanation, but we must also focus on a juncture of rapid civic reorganization
between the mid-1960s and the early 1990sa juncture during which elite, well-
educated Americans abandoned cross-class membership federations while launch-
ing professionally managed organizations. When a fundamental reorganization
occurs as rapidly as it did in late twentieth-century America, a combination of

causal forcesnot just a single causal factoris usually at work. In this case, a criti-
cal event, the Vietnam War, coincided with converging social, political, and techno-
logical trends to spur civic reorganization.
The Vietnam War broke the tradition of cross-class civic solidarity among men.
Earlier wars across U.S. history encouraged men to band together in veterans and
fraternal groups. But Vietnam was a losing war and especially unpopular with edu-
cated elites. In civic life, this war drove a wedge between social strata and genera-
tions. The human rights revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s were also pivotal, because
they challenged the gender roles and racial divisions that had marked U.S. associa-
tional life in previous times (Skocpol 2003, 17899). Young people and educated
Americans became reluctant to join associations with histories of racial exclusion
and separation of the genders. In the same era, given the entry of more and more
women into the paid labor force and the proliferation of female-led families, women
were no longer available as helpmates for mens groups, making it harder for those
groups to ourish. Changes in work and family life also hurt groups that needed to
coordinate peoples availability for recurrent meetings, as most traditional male and
female associations had needed to do.
Finally, as old-line membership federations declined, national government
activism and new technologies spurred the formation of professionally managed
advocacy groups and institutions. We often think of voluntary groups as making
demands on governmentyet it is also true that government institutions and poli-
cies inuence group formation. From the late 1950s and the 1960s, the federal gov-
ernment intervened in many new realms of social and economic lifeand thousands
of new associations formed in response (Skocpol 2007). For example, new advocacy
groups speaking for feminists and minorities proliferated, not before, but after the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the establishment of federal agencies to enforce afr-
mative action regulations (Skocpol 2007, 4749). As this happened in many policy
areas, moreover, newly formed groups could maneuver more effectively if they hired
professional staffers. Lawyers working for associations or public interest rms could
bring cases before federal courts open to class action law suits. Expert staffers could
manage relations with the national media, lobby proliferating numbers of
Congressional aides, and contact expanding numbers of executive branch ofcials
(Skocpol 2007, 5152).
New technologies and resources allowed late-twentieth-century association-
builders to operate from centralized ofces in Washington, D.C. and New York City.
Back in the nineteenth century, when Frances Willard worked to build a nationally
inuential federation, the Womans Christian Temperance Union, she traveled all
over the country recruiting organizers to found and sustain a nationwide network
of local chapters. By contrast, when Marian Wright Edelman (1987) got the inspira-
tion to found the Childrens Defense Fund, she turned to private foundations for
grants and then recruited an expert staff of researchers and lobbyists. And the
founder of Common Cause, John Gardner, used a few large donations to set up a
mailing-list operation (McFarland 1984, Rothenberg 1992).
4. The Impact on American Democracy

Does civic reorganization matter for the health of American democracy? Democracy
in the United States has been enlarged, say optimistic social analysts, by social move-
ments and advocacy groups ghting for social rights and fresh understandings of
the public interest (Berry 1999; Minkoff 1997; and Schudson 1998). Americans are
reinventing community, too (Wuthnow 1994, 1998)joining exible small groups
and engaging in ad hoc volunteering, while supporting expert advocates who speak
for important values on the national stage. Many of these points are reasonable
responses to pessimists who declare that contemporary civil society is falling apart.
Yet those who look on the upside fail to notice that more voices are not the same
thing as increased democratic capacity, and do not see that gains in racial and gen-
der equality have been accompanied by declines in democratic participation and
governance.
a. Dwindling Avenues for Participation

Scholars studying political participation have established that a combination of
resources, motivation, and mobilization explains variations in who participates, how,
and at what levels (Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; Rosenstone and Hansen
1993; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). Individuals from privileged families have
advantages of income and education, and also tend to be regularly contacted by
civic organizers or election campaigners. What is more, people in managerial and
professional careers are likely to gain skills at work that can be transferred to public
activities. Nevertheless, such socioeconomic disparities can be partially counter-
acted if popularly rooted political parties, unions, churches, and associations mobi-
lize and motivate average citizens and spread skills that facilitate participation.
Along with unions and farm groups, traditional U.S. fellowship federations
were organizational mechanisms for widely distributing civic skills and motivation.
Back in 1892, Walter B. Hill published a humorous piece in The Century Magazine
purporting to explain to a foreign friend how the United States could be a country
that encouraged every boy to aspire to be President and every American girl to be
the Presidents wife when, in fact, there were not that many public ofces to go
around. The great American safety valve, wrote Hill (1892, 384), is that we are a
nation of presidents with an an enormous supply of ofcial positions at the local,
state, and national level in a thousand and one societies.
Hills (1892, 383) observations about the signicance of the non-political ofce-
holding class in our country identied a crucial aspect of traditional American
civic life. Countless churches and voluntary groups of all sizes needed volunteer
leaders. Indeed, the largest, nation-spanning voluntary federations could have as
many as 15,00017,000 local chapters, each of which needed twelve to eighteen of-
cers and committee leaders each year. Considering just the twenty largest voluntary
federations in 1955, I estimate that some 3 to 5 percent of the adult population was
serving in such leadership roles. As they cycled millions of Americans through of-
cial responsibilities, classic voluntary federations taught people how to run meet-
ings, handle moneys, keep records, and participate in group discussions. With fresh
recruits to leadership ladders in each, so many ofcers and activists were required
that there were plenty of opportunities for men and women from blue-collar and
lower-level white collar occupations. Local activists, furthermore, regularly moved
up to responsibilities at district, state, and national levels.
Unions, farmers groups, and popularly rooted cross-class federations also con-
veyed politically relevant knowledge and motivation. The constitutions of volun-
tary federations taught people about parliamentary rules and legislative, judicial,
and executive functions. Membership gave them experience with elections and
other forms of representative governance, and drove home concrete lessons about
the relationship between taxation through dues and the associations ability to
deliver collective services. Whether or not they mobilized members for legislative
campaigns, all traditional voluntary associations reinforced ideals of good citizen-
ship. They stressed that members in good standing should understand and obey
laws, volunteer for military service, engage in public discussionsand, above all,
vote. Gerber and Green (2000) show that people are more likely to turn out to vote
in response to face-to-face appeals, and Americas traditional popular associations
routinely provided such appeals.
Consider by contrast the workings of todays professionally run associations. To
be sure, as the Childrens Defense Fund exemplies, certain kinds of advocacy
groups can enlarge our democracy by speaking on behalf of vulnerable groups that
could not otherwise gain voice. Nevertheless, in an associational universe domi-
nated by business groups and professionally managed public interest groups, the
mass participatory and educational functions of classic civic America are not repro-
duced. Because patron grants and computerized mass mailings generate money
more readily than modest dues repeatedly collected from millions of members, and
because paid experts are more highly valued than volunteer leaders, todays public
interest groups have little incentive to engage in mass mobilization and no need to
share control with state and local chapters.
In mailing-list organizations, most adherents are seen as consumers who send
money to buy a certain brand of public interest representation. Repeat adherents,
meanwhile, are viewed as potential big donors (Bosso 1995, 2002; Jordan and
Mahoney 1997). Professional advocacy organizations have become more and more
money-hungry operations, even as the United States has experienced growing
inequalities in wealth and income (as documented in Danziger and Gottschalk 1995;
and Mishel, Bernstein, and Boushey 2003). America today is full of civic organiza-
tions that look upwards in the class structureholding constant rounds of fund-
raisers and always on the lookout for wealthy angels.
Todays advocacy groups are also less likely than traditional fellowship federa-
tions to entice masses of Americans indirectly into politics. In the past, ordinary
Americans joined voluntary membership federations not for political reasons, but
also in search of sociability, recreation, cultural expression, and social assistance
(Skocpol 2003). Recruitment occurred through peer networks, and people usually
had a mix of reasons for joining. Men and women could be drawn in, initially, for
nonpolitical reasons, yet later end up learning about public issues or picking up
skills or contacts that could be relevant to legislative campaigns or electoral politics
or community projects. People could also be drawn in locally, yet end up participat-
ing in state-wide or national campaigns.
But todays public interest associations are much more specialized and explic-
itly devoted to particular causeslike saving the environment, or ghting for afr-
mative action, or opposing high taxes, or promoting good government. People
have to know what they think and have some interest in national politics and the
particular issue before they send a check. And the same tends to be true of Internet-
based movements, the latest twist in civic innovation. Such electronic movements
can move quickly and connect citizens across many localities; but people often need
to know they care, before they click on the site. Todays advocacy groups, in short,
are not very likely to entice masses of Americans indirectly into democratic
politics.
For the reasons just discussed, adherents of contemporary public interest asso-
ciations are heavily skewed towards the highly educated upper-middle class (Skocpol
2007, 6061). Of course, well-educated and economically privileged Americans have
always been differentially likely to participate in voluntary associations. But there
used to be many federations seeking huge numbers of members; and in a country
with thin strata of higher-educated and wealthy people, mass associations could
thrive only by reaching deeply into the population. Nowadays, we live in a country
where the top quarter of the population holds college degrees, because higher edu-
cation expanded enormously in the late twentieth century (Mare 1995, 16368;
National Center for Educational Statistics 2001, 17). In consequence, groups seeking
mailing-list followings in the tens to the hundreds of thousands can focus recruit-
ment on the higher-educatedaiming to attract the very Americans who are most
likely to know in advance that they care about public issues. These are the people
who appreciate the mass mailings that public interest groups send out. And because
higher-educated Americans have experienced sharply rising incomes in recent
decades, they are also the folks who can afford to pay for professionally managed
advocacy efforts.
b. Upwards-Tilted Public Agendas and Policymaking

Apart from the participatory effects of recent civic transformations, what about
their broader impact on agendas of public discussion and public policymaking?
Evidence is spotty, but it points towards diminished democracy. Even for the mid-
dle class, professionally led associations with virtual constituencies may not
deliver as much representational clout as we sometimes imagine. In a conceptu-
ally very interesting comparison of pro-life and pro-choice mobilizations in U.S.
abortion controversies, McCarthy (1987) rst measures public sentiments as
reected in national opinion surveys. At the time he wrote, such results showed
that pro-choice sentiments were considerably stronger in the U.S. public, yet
organized mobilization magnied the pro-life impact on public agendas and leg-
islation far beyond what was achieved by the more popular pro-choice efforts. To
see why, McCarthy argues, we must notice the gap between social movements that
can build on already-existing social institutions and social networksas the pro-
life movement and other contemporary new right movements canversus thin
infrastructure movements run by professional social movement organizations
that use direct-mail techniques. Although McCarthy does not deny that such thin
infrastructure organizations can make some headway in translating widespread
mass sentiment into publicity and legislative results, he sees them as far less effec-
tive, relative to the proportion of citizens who may hold a given position, than
movements that can build on already organized, network-rich institutions and
associations.
More telling is the impact of recent civic reorganizations on Americas capac-
ity to use government for socioeconomically redistributive purposes. The decline
of blue-collar trade unions is surely a case in point. Unions mobilize popular con-
stituencies electorally as well as in workplaces to demand an active government
role in social redistribution. A recent study investigating variations among nations
and across the U.S. states argues that union decline helps to explain shrinking elec-
torates. Rates of unionization are important determinants of the size of the elec-
torate . . . and, thus, the extent to which the full citizenry is engaged in collective
decisions. . . . Declines in labor organization. . . . mean that the electorate will increas-
ingly over-represent higher-status individuals, according to Radcliff and Davis
(2000, 140). The result, presuming that elected ofcials are more responsive to
those who vote than those who do not, will be public policies less consistent with
the interests of the working class. Furthermore, Radcliff and Davis nd that given
that unions also contribute to the maintenance of left party ideology, a declining
labor movement implies that left parties may move toward the center. Shrinking
union memberships . . . thus contribute to a further narrowing of the ideological
space.
The dwindling of once-huge cross-class membership federations has also
affected representation and public discussion. Ideologically, traditional voluntary
federations downplayed partisan causes and trumpeted values of fellowship and
community service, so their decline leaves the way clear for alternative modes of
public discourse less likely to facilitate social inclusion or partisan compromises.
Modern advocacy associations often use human rights talk and champion highly
specialized identities, issues, and causes. Stressing differences among groups and
the activation of strong sentiments shared by relatively homogeneous followings,
advocacy group tactics may further articial polarization and excessive fragmenta-
tion in American public life (Fiorina 1999; McCarthy 1987; Skerry 1997). In Pagets
(1990) eloquent phrasing, the proliferation of advocacy groups can add up to
many movements but no majority. Historically, popular and cross-class volun-
tary membership federations championed inclusive public social provisionbut
contemporary advocacy groups plus business and professional associations are

much less likely to do so.
Perhaps the most intriguing evidence on the distributive effects of recent civic
changes appears in Berrys 1999 book, The New Liberalism. As his longitudinal
research shows, professionally run public interest groups made quality of life causes
such as environmentalism more visible and often prevailed in head-to-head legisla-
tive battles with business interests. But Berry also shows that, at least in the late
twentieth century, public interest associations crowded out advocacy by unions and
other groups speaking for the interests and values of blue-collar Americans; and
liberal advocates rarely allied with traditional liberal groups on behalf of redistribu-
tive social programs. Liberal citizen groups, Berry writes, have concentrated on
issues that appeal to their middle-class supporters. . . . as the new left grew and grew,
the old left was . . . increasingly isolated (1999, 557).
5. Conclusion
The upshot of recent, epochal changes in American civic democracy is paradoxical:
Variety and voice have been enhanced in the new U.S. civic universe forged by the
organizing upsurges of the 1960s to the 1990s. But the gains in voice and public
leverage have mainly accrued to the top tiers of U.S. society, while Americans who
are not wealthy or higher-educated now have fewer associations representing their
values and interests and enjoy dwindling opportunities for active participation.
For all of their effectiveness in mobilizing citizens across class lines, traditional
U.S. fellowship federations were usually racist and gender-exclusive, and they failed
to pursue many causes that are vital for Americans today. Yet the recent prolifera-
tion of professionally managed civic organizationsfrom advocacy groups to non-
prot agencies to internet advocacy groupscreates a situation in which the most
active Americans tend to be higher-educated and privileged people, Americans who
know what to look for in the public realm, and who often do things for their fellow
citizens rather than with them. On the liberal side of the partisan spectrum, espe-
cially, there are too few opportunities for large numbers of Americans to work
together for broadly shared values and interests. This leaves U.S. public life impov-
erished, and suggests that those organizing to shape the political future must con-
tinue to look for innovative ways to recreate the best traditions of American civic
life, while preserving and extending the gains of recent times.
For their own partisan purposes from the heyday of the Christian Coalition in
the 1980s and 1990s to the outburst of the Tea Party movement from 2008, contem-
porary U.S. conservatives have created new combinations of centralized and local
action. They have revived or newly built associational networks that link local ener-
gies with national lobbying, and that successfully engage a wide variety of Americans
in civic and political action. Liberals have been slower to innovate in comparable
ways, but there have been new efforts in the environmental and labor movements to
combine national advocacy with community-building. What is more, from the 2004
through the 2008 electoral cycles, liberals did much innovative mobilization within
the U.S. federal system, culminating in a remarkable engagement of young people
and minorities in the 2008 presidential campaign of Democrat Barack Obama,
whose organization creatively combined central discipline, the use of new informa-
tion technologies, and local, face-to-face volunteerism.
But involvements and enthusiasms dwindled after Obama assumed the presi-
dency and lobbyists in Washington, D.C. appeared to take charge once again.
Electoral organizing alone is not enough to close civic engagement gaps in American
civic and political life. Nor is any kind of politically partisan organizing likely to
recreate the ongoing local and national ties that bound together so many millions
of Americans of all walks of life from the early-nineteenth through the mid-
twentieth century. Despite promising recent experiments, the future of democratic
civic engagement in the United States is at best partly cloudyand will remain so
as long as inequalities of education and resources are so vast, and as long as there are
so many incentives for elites to pull levers from above without inviting the sustained
involvement of millions of fellow citizens.
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chapter 10
CIVIL SOCIETY IN
LATIN AMERICA
evelina dagnino
Every notion of civil society implies some conception of how society should look
and how politics should operate. In this sense, different understandings of civil
society convey different political projects, and are always in dispute. This is espe-
cially true in Latin America, where intellectual and political debates are intimately
inter-twined. As in other parts of the world, the idea of civil society became promi-
nent in the political vocabulary of the continent in the context of struggles around
democracy. From the mid 1970s onward, civil society came to be seen as the most
important source of resistance against oppressive States in countries under military
dictatorship such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay; and under authoritarian
regimes such as those in Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. The re-establishment of for-
mal democratic rule and the relative opening up of most political regimes in Latin
America did not remove the importance of civil society as some transitologists
had assumed (ODonnell and Schmitter, 1986). On the contrary, it reinforced its
centrality in the building and deepening of democracy both theoretically and prac-
tically. Since 1990, the meanings of civil society have multiplied still further under
the divergent inuences of neo-liberalism and the emergence of Left-leaning gov-
ernments in some parts of the continent, the rst trend consigning civil society to
the realm of third-sector service-provision and the second opening up new pos-
sibilities for participatory democracy.
Ideas about civil society in Latin America have to be understood within the
context of striking levels of inequality, and political societies that historically have
been unable or unwilling to address this problem; high levels of cultural heteroge-
neity, especially in countries with large indigenous populations; the predominance
of informal markets and endemic poverty; and a faade of liberal democracy that is
civil society in latin america 123
characterized by an enormous distance between political elites and institutions, and

the great mass of Latin Americas population. Populist-developmentalist arrange-
ments of the kind that have been implemented in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico
have tried to bridge this distance through the control and subordination of social
organizations in order to guarantee political support and governability.
For some authors, these contextual characteristics mean that Western concep-
tualizations of civil society do not hold in Latin American societies (Zapata, 1999),
but innovative, critical approaches have been developed across the continent in
close collaboration with new experiences of civil society engagement such as par-
ticipatory budgeting. As elsewhere in the world, the prominence of these ideas stems
from the perception that civil society is a potent force in building an effective
democracy, a perception that has not escaped some skepticism but remains alive
across Latin America after more than thirty years. This chapter examines these vari-
ous understandings of civil society and explores the factors underlying their
diversity.
1. Civil Society: Homogenous or Diverse?

Resistance against authoritarianism was able to achieve a relative unity across dif-
ferent social interests in many Latin American contexts, but it soon disappeared
after the return to democratic rule, revealing the inherent nature of civil society as
a eld of different and conicting views. However, these differences still tend to be
ignored in political discourse, where civil society is often seen as a macro political
subject, in some cases merely replacing older ideas about the people. The wide-
spread and persistent tendency to see civil society as the home of democratic virtues
and the State as the embodiment of evil (Dagnino 2002), which had a clear sense
under authoritarian rule, has been reinforced by the inuence of leading theorists
such as Habermas, Cohen, and Arato. Their tripartite models, in which civil society
and the life-world are sharply distinguished from the market and the state, contrib-
uted to this sense of separation. Habermass emphasis on communicative action as
a privileged logic of civil society, and the risks of its colonization by both states and
markets, helped to confer legitimacy on the demonization of the State.
The afrmation of civil society was also related to a return to the values of an
ethical life and social solidarity at a moment when the market becomes an irrevers-
ible element (Pinheiro 1994, 7, 9). Leftist sectors, heavily affected by the failure of
real existing socialism, did not immediately react against this mythical view.
Instead, they transferred their allegiance to social movements that emerged in the
context of resisting authoritarianism, and which were considered, rather indiscrim-
inately, as the new heroes of social transformation (Krischke and Scherer-Warren,
1987). The presumed connection between associational life and the good society is
clear in this respect, and its premise is that the values of that society rest on the
shoulders of ordinary people who organize and associate with each other to defend
them. As a generalization about Latin America, or indeed any other place for that
matter, this view is not defensible. Arato himself recognized that the unity of civil
society is obvious only from a normative perspective (1992, 21).
The recognition of the heterogeneity of civil society is important not only in
theoretical terms, as a eld of conict, but is also evident in empirical terms across
the continent. From the paramilitary organizations of Colombia to market-oriented
NGOs or entrepreneurial foundations in Brazil; corporatist trade-unions in
Argentina to indigenous movements in Bolivia and Ecuador; and youth gangs such
as the maras in Peru, associational life varies enormously. In Venezuela, for exam-
ple, civil society has been appropriated by the middle class, and in President Hugo
Chvezs discourse, the term has a pejorative meaning when used to refer to the
privileged sectors of society. For this reason, the poor have rarely identied with
the term civil society, much less felt represented by the middle and upper classes.
(Garca-Guadilla et al, 2004, 13). In Brazil after years of neo liberal rule, civil soci-
ety has marginalized social movements and is increasingly restricted to denote the
world of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), itself an extremely heteroge-
neous eld (Teixeira, 2003). This heterogeneity is exemplied in the role played by
NGOs in Colombia, considered by President Uribe as serious adversaries, and in the
insistence of ABONG, the Brazilian Association of NGOs, to resist the homogeniz-
ing denomination of Third Sector in order to afrm its own political identity.
Even when empirical research began to be undertaken on civil society in Latin
America, it concentrated on assessing the size and levels of associational activity,
assuming that a quantitative expansion meant favorable results for democracy
(Avritzer, 2000; Scherer-Warren, Ilse et al., 1998; Santos 1993). Only recently has
empirical research turned its focus to unveiling civil societys heterogeneity
(Dagnino, 2002; Panchi, 2002; Olvera, 2003; Gurza et al., 2005).
2. Civil Society and the State

Civil society and the state are always mutually constitutive. In fact, the kind of rela-
tionships that are established between them represent a crucial dimension in the
building of democracy. In the 1980s and 1990s, most theoretical efforts to conceptu-
alize civil society in Latin America were predicated on the need to afrm, not just its
importance, but its very existence. In an academic and political landscape domi-
nated by a statist conception of politics rooted in the developmentalist/populist
tradition, the afrmation of another space of politics and of other actors who
were entitled to participate in those spaces was a key concern, and an emphasis on
separate spheres played a central role in that effort.
For similar reasons, Latin American social movements placed strong emphasis
on their autonomy vis--vis the State and political parties, reacting against the
control and subordination to which they had long-been submitted. This strategic
emphasis has often been interpreted as a rejection or a turning their back to the
State (Evers 1983). In fact, the State in Latin America has always been a mandatory
interlocutor for social movements and other civil society organizations, even dur-
ing the harsh times of authoritarianism.
Although they still predominate, the simplistic tone of these views has been
increasingly contested in Latin America in both theory and in practice. The emer-
gence of more complex approaches to civil society is in part a response to the
concrete difculties encountered in deepening democracy, which always implies
an intricate interplay of forces and struggles across diverse actors and arenas.
Simplistic views also created frustration, disappointment and disenchantment
among civil society activists when the high expectations they had raised failed to
be translated into reality (Olvera, 1999). Academics expressed the same reactions in
an analytical wave that decreed the death or crisis of Latin American social
movements.
At the theoretical level, alternative analyses of civil society took their inspira-
tion from Gramsci and others in order to contest the false dichotomies of these
dominant, homogenizing approaches. The Gramscian notion of civil society as a
terrain of conict and therefore, of politics, included an integral relationship with
the State, without which the central notion of hegemony would make no sense. This
framework has been used in several countries since the beginning of their anti-
authoritarian struggles, where the role played by civil society in the destruction and
recreation of hegemony was paramount to its embrace by the Left as an appropriate
basis for the struggle for democracy. Well familiar with frontal attack, the Left had
to learn how to conduct a war of position and the multiplicity of trenches it implies
(Dagnino 1998, 41).
The notion of hegemony as a framework for analyzing civil society and its rela-
tionship to the state was reinforced by the gradual ascension to power in several
countries of progressive and/or leftist forces that, in many cases, represented politi-
cal projects formulated by or originating in civil society itself. The Workers Party
(PT) in Brazil is the most signicant case. Emerging in 1980 from trade unionism,
popular movements, progressive sectors of the Catholic Church, and a few intel-
lectuals, the Workers Party began its electoral trajectory in 1982 and gradually wid-
ened its access to government positions, from municipal administrations to state
governments and nally, in 2002, to the presidency of the Republic. In other cases,
such as the creation of the Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD) and the
election of Mayor C. Crdenas in Mexico City in 1997, and that of Alejandro Toledo
in Peru in 2001, the articulation between politicians and civil society militants raised
expectations and opened up more room for rethinking their relationship, in spite of
subsequent, less positive developments. The movement of individuals in both direc-
tions intensied in many countries, with activists joining governments and politi-
cians seeking civil society support. This pattern has been clear in the elections of
presidents Tabar Vasquez in Uruguay in 2004, Evo Morales in Bolivia in 2005, and
Correa in Ecuador in 2006.
3. Civil Society and Participatory

Democracy
The emphasis on the articulation of civil society and the state found expression
in a whole variety of experiments around participatory democracy that devel-
oped throughout the continent from the 1990s onwards. The nucleus of these
experiments was the need to deepen and radicalize democracy in response to the
limits of liberal, representative models as a privileged form of state-society rela-
tions. Plagued by a resilient crisis of representation as a result of the exclusive
and elitist nature of liberal regimes and their incapacity to tackle deep-seated
inequalities across the continent, it was clear that representative democracy
needed to be complemented by participatory and deliberative mechanisms that
could increase participation in decision making (Santos and Avritzer 2002:7576;
Fals Borda 1996). When they translate to a central focus on equality, citizenship
and rights become powerful components of democratization, activated through
public spaces that enable greater participation in the formulation of public poli-
cies that are oriented towards this goal (Santos and Avritzer 2002; Murillo and
Pizano 2003; Ziccardi 2004; Caceres 2004). These spaces are forums for delibera-
tion and comanagement, implying more- or less-formal institutional designs
and sets of rules, and directed towards producing decisions of a public nature.
The states presence in them distinguishes these experiments from Habermasian
views of the public sphere. Civil society and public spaces are two distinct levels
that correspond to the socialization of politics and the socialization of power
(Coutinho 1980). Public spaces are spaces in which conict is both legitimized
and managed.
Brazil has been the pioneer in institutionalizing spaces like these within the
frame of the 1988 Constitution, which provided for direct participation by civil
society. Management Councils in several policy areas are mandatory at the munici-
pal, state and federal levels, with equal representation from civil society and the
state (Tatagiba 2002). The Participatory Budget process installed in Porto Alegre in
1989 under the Workers Party Administration has been adopted in many cities in
Latin America and increasingly in other parts of the world (Santos 1998; Avritzer
2002). The results of these experiments vary greatly, but, in some cases, they are
proving to be reasonably effective in enabling government and civil society to take
joint decisions, in spite of their limits and difculties. It is not surprising that most
of the initial theorizing on participation in Latin America has circulated around the
Brazilian experience. The existence of the Workers Party and of a dense and diversi-
ed civil society has allowed for signicant reective creativity through joint debates
over an extended period of time that involve activists, party members, and academ-
ics. The same conclusion applies to the concept of citizenship, which has been sig-
nicantly redened by Brazilian theorists and activists since the mid-1970s, and
which has also made important inroads in Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, and
Uruguay. Even in Chile, where notions of citizenship were strongly inuenced by

the early rise of neoliberalism, a lively debate has ensued (De La Maza 2001).1
Advocates of participatory democracy envisage a role for civil society that
rejects its traditional self-limiting character in order to engage with political activ-
ity and move beyond the strict separation from the state that characterizes the origi-
nal approach of Jurgen Habermas (1986). These more radical visions dene
participation as shared decision making with the state, thus departing from the idea
that civil society should refrain from political power and limit its actions to inu-
encing those already in authority. Tarso Genro, once Mayor of Porto Alegre and
subsequently Brazils Federal Minister of Justice, has articulated the awkwardly
named notion of nonstate public spaces to describe these experiments (Genro
1995). For Genro, these spacessimultaneously materialized in and inspired by the
experience of participatory budgets in Porto Alegreenable civil society to pene-
trate the state in order to make it more responsive to the public interest, thus break-
ing the states monopoly over decision making. This model obviously requires a
willing disposition on the part of the state to share some of its power, and relies on
a strongly organized civil society. Such conditions are comparatively rare in Latin
America, which is why the Brazilian experience has proven difcult to replicate in
other contexts. Furthermore, the autonomy of both partners in this relationship is
crucial. Santos (1998, 491) sees citizens and community organizations, on one hand,
and the municipal government, on the other, as converging with mutual auton-
omy. Such convergence occurs by means of a political contract through which this
mutual autonomy becomes mutually relative autonomy. Along the same lines,
Oliveira (1993, 6) calls this process convergent antagonism, emphasizing that such
relationships are not a zero-sum game. In spite of their sometimes convoluted for-
mulations, these ideas are important attempts to deal with the reality of state-society
relations, a question that is often ignored even by analysts of participatory
democracy.
The incorporation of participation by civil society in the constitutions of most
Latin American countries is evidence that these concepts have been widely accepted,
at least in theory. Between the early 1990s and the early 2000s, nineteen countries
included some provision for citizen participation in their legal-institutional frame-
works, seventeen approved mechanisms of direct political participation, and four-
teen constitutions provide for public spaces with state and civil society representation
(Hevia 2006).
Participatory experiences have proliferated across Latin America, marked by a
great diversity in their forms, expressions, qualities, and results, and producing
important demonstration effects through which one country learns from the expe-
riences of others. This process has intensied with the growth of continental net-
working among social movements, NGOs, academics, and political parties. The
most obvious example is the remarkable spread of participatory budgets, but others
include the Mesas de Concertacin in Peru (regional roundtables); the Auditoras
Articuladas in Colombia (state-society partnerships in the oversight of public con-
tracting, the execution of public works, and the accountability of state agencies); the
Conselhos Gestores de Polticas Pblicas in Brazil; the Consejos Autogestivos in

Mxico (self-management councils in protected natural areas), and many others.
These experiments show that alternative forms of citizen politics are possible, but
they are limited in temporal and spatial terms, as well as in their cultural and politi-
cal effects, especially when gauged against the expectations they have raised.
4. From Civil Society to Third Sector:

The Impact of Neoliberalism
Neoliberal interpretations of civil society in Latin America stand in sharp contrast
to participatory democracy. Although neoliberalism is associated with liberal, rep-
resentative democracy, at its core is the notion that the state and its relationships
to society have to adjust to the demands of a new moment in the development of
global capitalism. This impulse denes the internal logic that structures the neo-
liberal project. It does not offer a diagnosis of society in which a concern for
democracy is central. Instead, its goals are to adjust the economy by taking down
barriers to international capital, removing any obstacles to the operation of free
markets, and extending market principles as the basic organizing principle of social
life. In this framework, states that are characterized by their large size, inefciency,
excessive bureaucracy, and/or corruption nd new routes to more efcient forms
of action and the optimal use of scarce resources (Franco 1999). In addition to the
privatization of state enterprises, this process involves the transfer of the states
social responsibilities to individuals, civil society groups, and the private sector.
Furthermore, the search for efciency also works to legitimize the adoption of
the market as the organizing principle of social, political. and cultural life,
transforming governments into service providers and citizens into clients, users,
and consumers.
How have these ideas translated into conceptions of civil society, participation,
and citizenship in Latin America? From a neoliberal perspective, the role of civil
society is twofold. On the one hand, it should supply the state and the market with
information on social demands in order to increase efciency. On the other, it
should provide social organizations with the capacity to execute public policies that
are oriented towards the satisfaction of these demands. Thus, civil society is con-
ceived in a selective and exclusionary way, recognizing only those actors who are
able to carry out these tasks. These ideas have been put into practice in powerful
ways, reconguring civil society through the accelerated growth and expanded role
of NGOs; the rise of the so-called third sector and of entrepreneurial foundations
with a strong emphasis on redening philanthropy in business terms; and the mar-
ginalization (or what some refer to as the criminalization) of social movements.
The overall result has been a reductive identication of civil society with NGOs or
the third sector. Latin American governments fear the politicization of their
engagement with social movements and workers organizations, and instead seek
reliable partners who can effectively respond to their demands while minimizing
conict. This shaping capacity of state action is visible in what has been called the
NGOization of social movements (Alvarez, 2009), not only in terms of their orga-
nizational structures and behavior but also in their political practices. Attracted by
the opportunities offered by the state to engage in the execution of public policies,
few social movements have been able to retain both their independence and their
involvement in other kinds of political action. The Landless Movement in Brazil
(MST) is one of the few that has.
Under neoliberalism, participation is dened instrumentally, in relation to the
needs derived from the structural adjustment of the economy and the transfer of
the states social responsibilities to civil society and the private sector. For members
of civil society such as NGOs, participation means taking on the efcient execution
of social policies, even though the denition of those policies remains under exclu-
sive state control. Participation is thus concentrated in the functions of manage-
ment and policy implementation, not shared decision making (Teixeira 2003). The
reform of the state that was implemented in Brazil in 1998 under the inuence of
Minister Bresser Pereira (who introduced the principles of the new public manage-
ment) is very clear in relation to the different roles of the strategic nucleus of the
state and of social organizations. The former retains a clear monopoly over deci-
sion making (Bresser Pereira 1996).
All over the continent, the very idea of solidarity, whose long history is rooted
in political and collective action, became the motto of neoliberal versions of partici-
pation. As part of a broader move to privatize and individualize responsibilities for
social action, participation is relegated to the private terrain of morality where an
emphasis on volunteer work and social responsibility (of both individuals and
rms) becomes dominant. Along the same lines, the denition of the common or
public good dispenses with the need for debate between conicting views, replaced
by a set of private initiatives with a public sense based on the moral thesis of car-
ing for the other (Fernandes 1994, 127). The public character of the third sector
and NGOs has been increasingly questioned on the grounds that they lack the
transparency and accountability in terms of nances, agenda, and governance nec-
essary to effectively perform their crucial role in democratic civil society (McGann
and Johnstone 2006).
In this framework, associational life loses its public and political dimensions. In
fact, third sector advocates and activists insist on emptying it of any conictive or
even political connotations (Franco 1999; Fernandes 1994). For these advocates, the
replacement of civil society by the third sector would remove any sense of systemic
opposition to the state (Fernandes 1994, 127). Thus, the notion of civil society, and
the critical eld belonging to it, lose their meaning and only cooperation remains,
under a new homogenizing guise. The main effect of this change has been the de-
politicization of State-society relationships, with the question of conict disappear-
ing from the scene (Dagnino, Olvera, and Panchi 2006, 22).
Neoliberalism also redenes citizenship according to its own guiding principles,

diluting exactly that which constitutes the core of this notion, which is the idea of
universal rights. The way in which the meaning of citizenship is watered down can be
seen in several dimensions of the neoliberal project. First, social rights, which were
consolidated in some countries, in spite of the precarious nature of the Latin American
welfare state, are now being eliminated, seen as an obstacle to the efcient operation
of the market. Second, in the management of social policy, the conception of universal
rights as an instrument for constructing equality is replaced by targeted efforts directed
towards those sectors of society considered to be at risk. Third, citizenship is pushed
into the arena of the market and a seductive connection between the two is estab-
lished. To become a citizen increasingly means to integrate into the market as con-
sumer and producer. In a context where the state is progressively removed from its
role as the guarantor of rights, the market is expected to step in to offer a surrogate
space for citizenship. Fourth, when social policies are transferred to civil society orga-
nizations, philanthropy, and volunteer work, citizenship is both identied with and
reduced to solidarity with the poor and needy. Those who are the targets of these poli-
cies are not seen as citizens with the right to have rights but as needy human beings
who must be taken under the wing of private or public charities.
These ideas have been implemented by neoliberal governments throughout the
continent with the heavy support of international agencies. After the pioneering
Fondo de Solidaridad y Inversin Social (Solidarity and Social Investment Fund, or
FOSIS) was created in 1990 in Chileespecially tailored for NGO involvement
(Foweraker 2001, 18)a number of similar agencies and programs materialized in
the 1990s in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, and elsewhere. In Brazil, during the
eight years of the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Comunidade
Solidria, the agency in charge of social policies, became a powerful think tank,
which was extremely effective in developing and disseminating this framework
(Almeida 2009). These efforts have not been able to hinder the deepening of both
poverty and inequality in most countries during the same period, but the number
of NGOs multiplied geometrically, as did the growth of third sector employment
(Salamon and Sokolowski 2004). The processes of decentralization that have taken
place in most countries at different levels have contributed to this process through
so-called partnerships between local governments and NGOs, but have also made
possible a range of more participatory, democratic, and creative interactions
between civil society and local governments.
5. Conclusion
These different conceptions of civil society coexist in a more or less tense rela-
tionship, according to different national contexts and historical processes. Other
relevant dimensions that help us to understand this diversity have not been
discussed here, including the weight and role of political parties (either as com-
petitors or supporters of civil societys political actions), and the role of organized
crime as providers of alternatives to civil society organizations among the popu-
lar sectors.
Recent political processes that have taken left-leaning forces into state power
seem to indicate that the dominance of neoliberalism may be losing ground in the
continent, although this does not necessarily represent a commitment to civil soci-
ety or deliberative participation. In fact, in some of these cases such as Venezuela
and even President Lulas Brazil, the presence of strong leaders committed to the
popular sectors can, in fact, act as a deterrent to effective participation. In others like
Bolivia, the strong and relatively autonomous organization of indigenous move-
ments may serve as an antidote to this tendency.
In any case, the current condition of Latin America makes the centrality of the
relationships between state and civil society even clearer. The extent to which civil
society is seen as entitled to a share in decision making, and the extent to which
conict is seen as legitimate and public spaces are provided for its management,
seem to be the crucial questions on which the future of civil society will hang across
the continent.
NOTE
1. For a detailed account of the debate on citizenship in different Latin American

countries see Dagnino (2005), as well as the special issue on this theme in Latin American
Perspectives (2003).
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Teixeira, A. C. 2003. Identidades em construo: Organizaes no-governamentais no
processo brasileiro de democratizao. So Paulo: Annablume.
Zapata, Francisco. 1999. Presentacin, in Olvera, A. J. (ed.) La sociedad civil. De la teora a
la realidad. Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico.
Ziccardi, A., ed., 2004. Participacin ciudadana y polticas sociales en el mbito local. Mexico
City: Universidad Autonoma de Mexico.
chapter 11
CIVIL SOCIETY IN
POST-COMMUNIST
EUROPE
marc morj howard
Post-communist Europe presents a deep irony for scholars of civil society. On the
one hand, the region is the source of the revitalization of the term civil society
itself. Indeed, had it not been for Solidarnosc, the Polish opposition movement that
mobilized ten million people, and the subsequent peoples revolutions through-
out Eastern Europe and some of the former Soviet Union, the term civil society
would almost certainly not have become so widely used by academics or policy
makers. On the other hand, post-communist Europe is an area of the democratic
world where contemporary civil society is particularly weak. A closer look at the
region shows that shortly after the revolutionary moment had passed, people left
the streets and their civic organizations, leaving their societies largely passive and
depoliticized.
Although historical precedents are important for understanding most social
phenomena, they are vital for making sense of civil society in post-communist
Europe. One simply cannot understand why so few post-communist citizens par-
ticipate in the public sphere without grappling with the communist past and its
combination with the post-communist present. This chapter takes a historical
approach to civil society in the post-communist region, showing how the social
legacies of communism have adapted and persisted, and how they may even have
been reinforced by post-communist developments and experiences. It also addresses
the growing differences across the region between countries that are democratic
and those that are increasingly authoritarian, and also between countries that have
now joined the European Union and those that remain rmly on the outside. The
civil society in post-communist europe 135
chapter then raises a broader set of questions about the applicability of the concept
of civil society to nondemocratic countries and contexts. It makes the argument
that communist and post-communist experiences with civil society show the need
to distinguish between types of civil societyin particular oppositional and
democratic formssince otherwise it would make little sense for the strong civil
society of the late communist era to have dissipated so quickly after the onset of
democratization. Finally, the chapter concludes by assessing the implications of the
weakness of post-communist civil society for democracy in the region. It argues
that while the weakness of civil society certainly does not portend democracys
demise, it does suggest that post-communist democracy will remain unsettled and
somewhat troubled in the foreseeable future.
1. Post-Communist Civil Society

in Comparative Perspective
In order to be able to evaluate the strength and quality of civil society in any given
region, it is helpfulif not crucialto begin with a larger comparative perspective.
In The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Howard 2003), I pro-
vide an empirical baseline that shows that post-communist citizens have extremely
low levels of membership and participation in voluntary organizations. Moreover,
when compared to other regions and regime types in the world, variations among
post-communist countries are relatively small. Within post-communist Europe, the
similarity in levels of organizational membership is especially striking in light of the
wide political, economic, and cultural differences that exist between countries.
The drawback of a cross-national measure of civil society is that it focuses on a
thin denition and conceptualization of the concept, namely organizational mem-
bership. While this approach can be complemented by case studies that go into
greater depth, the broad approach nonetheless yields important comparative nd-
ings. For example, an analysis of the thirty-one democratic and democratizing
countries included in the 199597 World Values Survey (WVS) shows that post-
communist countries have signicantly lower levels of membership and participa-
tion than older democracies and post-authoritarian countries, and that these levels
actually declined from 199091 to 199597 (Howard 2003, 6273). In fact, the WVS
shows that citizens in post-communist countries belong to an average of 0.91 orga-
nizations per person, exactly half of the 1.82 organizational memberships per per-
son in post-authoritarian countries, and much less than the 2.39 in older democracies
(Howard 2003, 80). Moreover, organizational membership in post-communist
Europe was lower than in post-authoritarian countries across eight of the nine types
of organization that were included in the WVS (the exception being labor unions,
which represent a special case in the communist and post-communist context).
Subsequent surveys and studies have not contradicted this basic pattern. An
analysis of the next wave of the WVS, conducted in 19992003, conrms the same
signicant distinction between post-communist countries and other regions and
prior regime types (Valkov 2009). Moreover, a more rigorous regression analysis
that controls for other possible alternative variablesincluding economic,
political-institutional, and civilizational factors, as well as several individual-level
variables that are central to the literature on political participation and civil
societyshows that a countrys prior regime type (and in particular a prior com-
munist experience) is the most signicant and powerful variable for explaining
organizational membership (Howard 2003, 8190). These ndings indicate the need
for more in-depth consideration of the specic elements of that prior communist
experience, in order to explain why post-communist countries have relatively low
levels of organizational membership in comparison to older democracies and post-
authoritarian countries. In short, in order to understand the common weakness of
post-communist civil society, we need to take into consideration the common ele-
ments of the communist experience and its enduring legacy.
2. The Transformative Impact

of Communist Institutions
Before turning to the contemporary period, it is critical to consider the transforma-
tive impact of the communist institutional system, which had a signicant, decisive,
and in many ways homogenizing effect on societies throughout the region. Prior to
the establishment of the communist systemafter World War I in Russia and in the
early post-World War II period in Eastern Europethe region consisted of a very
diverse group of countries. In addition to having different religious faiths, having
belonged to different historical empires, and having fought on different sides in
both world wars, they had vastly different levels of industrialization and economic
development, and different political traditions. By the 1950s, however, the commu-
nist leadershipenforced by the ruthless policies of Moscow Centerhad suc-
ceeded in imposing and enforcing replica regimes that were characterized by the
same institutional and ideological mechanisms throughout the Soviet bloc ( Jowitt
1992). Although the communists certainly incorporated and reinforced pre-existing
historical tendencies, over the next thirty years the party of a new type also suc-
ceeded in creating a society of a new type.
Ken Jowitt, one of the most astute and original scholars in the eld of compara-
tive communism, has argued convincingly that the distinguishing feature of what
he calls Leninist regimes was the concept of charismatic impersonalism. In an
essay written as far back as 1978 and reprinted in Jowitt (1992), he argued that just
like the liberal societies of the West, communist societies were based on impersonal
institutions and norms, but their central and dening feature was the existence of
the Communist Party as the locus and core of all social organization, whose author-
ity was transcendent, unquestioned, and charismatic. Although the extent of that
authority did vary somewhat across the communist bloc, and it diminished slightly
over the decades of communist rule, the institutional charisma of the Communist
Party remained a dening feature that distinguished Soviet-type regimes from other
forms of nondemocratic rule.
Valerie Bunce (1999, 2125) also provides a very useful synthesis of the various
elements of the communist experience, which she refers to as having been homog-
enizing, by focusing on four central factors: 1) the ideological mission of the ruling
elite, 2) the construction . . . of a conjoined economic and political monopoly that
rested in the hands of the Communist Party, 3) the fusion of not just the polity
and the economy, but also the party and the state, and 4) the extraordinary insti-
tutional penetration of the state. All four of these features existed in communist
systems across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, with the partial exception of
the more pluralist Yugoslavia and, to a lesser extent, Poland and Hungary. The
fourth of Bunces elements is the most important for understanding contemporary
post-communist civil society, because it involves the party-states attempt at com-
plete penetration, surveillance, and control of all aspects of society. Unlike authori-
tarian regimes, which generally allow for the existence of independent social
activities that are not directly threatening to the state (Linz and Stepan 1996), the
party prevented the existence of any associational life, political organizations, or
social movements that existed separate from the party-state institutional web. As a
consequence, mass publics were rendered dependent on the party-state for jobs,
income, consumer goods, education, housing, health care, and social and geo-
graphic mobility (Bunce 1999, 24).
Even further, the party actually attempted to supplant and supersede the very
need for independent social activity by creating a dense institutional web of groups
and organizations in which membership and participation were generally manda-
tory or coerced. Very few people could avoid this party-state control of the public
sphere, since almost every child had to join the ofcial youth organization, and
almost every working adult belonged to the ofcial trade union and to other mass
organizations. Bunce (1999, 28) provides an evocative description of the remark-
ably uniform set of experiences of communist citizens: Whether citizens engaged
in political, economic, social, or cultural activities, they were controlled in what
they could do by the party. Thus, the party did not just orchestrate elite recruitment,
voting, attendance at rallies, and the content of the mass media. It also functioned
in the economy as the only employer, the only defender of workers rights (through
party-controlled unions), the only setter of production norms, and the only alloca-
tor of vacation time (while being the only builder and maintainer of vacation
retreats). At the same time, the party allocated all goods and set all prices. Finally, it
was the party (sometimes through enterprises) that was the sole distributor of
housing, education, health care, transportation, and opportunities for leisure-time
activities.
In short, the Communist Party sought to monitor and control virtually every
aspect of economic, political, and even social life, and this feature distinguished
communism from other non-democratic authoritarian regimes. Another crucial
element of the communist experience involves the peculiar social consequences
of centralized economic planning. In an economic system with chronic short-
ages, only a few privileged peopleusually elite members of the Communist
Party who went shopping at special stores that had a full supply of western
goodscould avoid the long lines, bland choices, and frequently missing neces-
sities of daily life, from salt to toilet paper. The economic situation combined
with Communist Party control of the public sphere in a mutually reinforcing
relationship that constricted and sometimes reshaped the range of possibilities
for thought and action. In other words, since the public sphere was so politi-
cized, controlled, and monitored, and since valued goods and services were hard
to acquire without connections or help, people developed common patterns of
adaptive behavior.
The central characteristic of these social and behavioral patterns was the dis-
tinction between the public and private realms (Shlapentokh 1989; Kharkhordin
1999). As Jowitt (1992, 287) writes, restating his own argument from almost twenty
years earlier, the Leninist experience in Eastern Europe . . . reinforced the exclusive
distinction and dichotomic antagonism between the ofcial and private realms.
Bunce (1999, 30) adds that Homogenization also encouraged individuals within
socialist systems to divide their personalities into a public and conformist self, on
the one hand, and a private and more rebellious self on the otherwhat was referred
to in the East German setting as a Nischengesellschaft, or niche society. With a pub-
lic sphere that was entirely controlled by the Communist Party and its corollary
organizational apparatus (including the secret police, trade unions, and many mass
membership organizations), most communist citizens developed a cautious rela-
tionship to public and formal activitiesrecall Vclav Havels (1985, 2729) famous
example of the greengrocer who posts the slogan Workers of the World, Unite! in
his shop in order to show that I am obedient and therefore have the right to be left
in peace.
Private relations, in contrast, became even more vibrant and meaningful,
since people could only speak openly in front of others they knew and trusted,
and also because connections took on an important role in the shortage economy,
where people had to rely on their family, friends, and acquaintances in order to
get things done, rather than going through ofcial channels ( Wedel 1986; Ledeneva
1998).
To summarize, the communist institutions that were established after 1917 in
the Soviet Union and after World War II in Eastern Europe managed to recongure
and homogenize an otherwise diverse set of peoples, even if not as originally
intended. The result of the shortage economy and the Communist Partys ruthless
control of the public sphere was that citizens throughout communist Europe devel-
oped adaptive mechanisms of behavior, centered on private networks, which aug-
mented the sharp distinction between the public and private spheres.
3. The Social Legacy of Communism and Its

Impact on Post-Communist Civil Society
One might have thought that the disappearance of the communist system and its
mass organizations would lead to an outpouring of public participation in new
organizations that were truly voluntary and autonomous. This is indeed what many
analysts expected, especially following the remarkable spontaneous mobilizations
that brought about communisms collapse between 1989 and 1991 (see, for example,
Di Palma 1991 and Rau 1991). But, as it turns out, these new opportunities have not
brought about an increase in participation.
The low levels of participation in civil society organizations in contemporary
post-communist Europe can best be understood by taking into account the com-
mon elements of the communist experience, as well as the events since the collapse
of that system. In particular, three important factors are common to the wide array
of societies in post-communist Europe: 1) the legacy of mistrust of communist
organizations; 2) the persistence of friendship networks; and 3) post-communist
disappointment. Taken together, these three factors help to explain the lasting weak-
ness of civil society in the region.
a. Mistrust of Organizations
As discussed above, one of the central features that distinguished communism
from authoritarianism was the formers extensive repression of autonomous plu-
ralism. Unlike authoritarian regimes, however, which tolerated nonstate activities
so long as they did not threaten the state or the military, communist regimes not
only attempted to eliminate any form of independent group activity but they also
supplanted it with an intricately organized system of state-controlled organiza-
tions, in which participation was often mandatory. As a result, one of the most
striking features of state-socialist societies was the clear distinction between for-
mal institutions and informal behaviors that people made use of in their everyday
lives. Every communist country was intricately organized with an array of formal
organizations in almost the same institutional forms, including youth groups, the
Communist Party, trade unions, cultural federations, peasant and worker groups,
womens groups, and many others, as well as the less politicized (but still state-
controlled) groups and organizations that ranged from sports clubs to book lovers
clubs. Most people were members of multiple organizations, but membership itself
was often mandatory, coerced, or used for instrumental purposes. In other
wordsto an increasing degree over the lifespan of communist regimes, as the
party lost the legitimacy and popular enthusiasm that it had generated in its earlier
stagespeople often joined because they had to, because they were told that they
could face negative consequences if they did not join, or because joining and
participating improved their career chances. Only in the case of less politicized
associations such as book clubs and sports clubs did people join for less coercive or
instrumental reasons.
When they participated in quasi-mandatory organizations, most people did
very little, aside from paying their small annual dues (which were usually deducted
automatically from their salaries), attending a few compulsory meetings, and occa-
sionally receiving some special benets like vacation packages from the ofcial trade
union. Membership was mainly based on obligation, obedience, and external con-
formity, rather than on internal and voluntary initiatives. Due to this essentially
negative experience with state-run organizations during the communist period,
majorities of citizens throughout post-communist Europe continue to have a com-
mon sense of mistrust of organizations today.
As a direct legacy of the communist experience, most people in post-communist
countries still therefore strongly mistrust and avoid any kind of formal organiza-
tions, even in newly free and democratic settings. Instead of drawing a clear distinc-
tion between the voluntary associations of today and the mass organizations of the
communist past, most post-communist citizens view and evaluate organizations
with a certain sense of continuity. The distinction they make is that previously they
were essentially forced to join, while today they are free to choose not to join and not
to participate.
b. The Persistence of Friendship Networks

The ip side of the public experience of communismwhere membership in state-
controlled organizations was more of a formality, born out of obligation and expe-
diency rather than being deeply feltwas that relationships in the private sphere
were extremely meaningful and genuine. Broadly speaking, there were two main
reasons for this. First, because the formal and public sphere was highly politicized
and also tightly controlled, people could only express themselves openly within
close circles of trusted friends and family. Second, because of the shortage of avail-
able goods to buy, personal and social connections played an essential role in com-
munist societies, whether used to obtain spare parts for xing a car, or nding
products that were rarely available in stores.
These two reasons also correspond to two different, although sometimes over-
lapping, types of private networks that existed in communist societies. The rst
encompassed how people socialized and with whom they spent their free time, and
the second involved a more instrumental use of connections to acquire goods and
services, and to get ahead in general (Ledeneva 1998). The rst type of networks
consisted primarily of a small number of close and trusted friends and family mem-
bers, whereas the second included many distant acquaintances or people with whom
one only interacted for the purpose of acquiring or receiving something in return.
These two types of networks overlapped to the extent that close friends and family
also helped each other instrumentally, but only rarely did instrumental acquain-
tances enter the small and trusted circle of close friends.
Today, long after the collapse of the system that had created and sustained this
vibrant private sphere, networks of close friends and family remain extremely
prominent and important throughout the post-communist region. These networks
of instrumental connections, however, have changed to varying degrees across post-
communist countries, since the market economy can eliminate the need to acquire
goods and services through informal channels. Overall, however, unlike in many
Western societieswhere voluntary organizations have become a central part of
social and political culture, and where people join organizations in order to meet
new people and to expand their horizons through public activitiesin post-
communist societies, many people are still extremely invested in their own private
circles. They simply feel no need, much less desire, to join and participate in orga-
nizations when they feel that, socially, they already have everything that they could
need or want.
c. Post-Communist Disappointment
The third reason that helps to explain the particularly low levels of public participa-
tion in post-communist Europe is the widespread disappointment, and for some
even disillusionment, with political and economic developments since the collapse
of the state-socialist system. Although it is most pronounced among those people
who were personally involved in the movements leading to the creation of a new
institutional order, this third factor applies to the wider population as well. For
most people throughout the former Soviet bloc, the years 198991 represent a
unique, momentous, and fascinating time in their lives, when their world was
changing rapidly and dramatically. Although they had many fears and uncertainties
about where the changes would lead them, most people experienced at least a brief
moment of genuine excitement, hope, and idealism during those times of rapid
transformation. Moreover, they shared the belief that the end of Communist Party
rule, the emergence of new democratic and market institutions, and at long last the
freedom and right to speak freely, associate openly with others, and to travel beyond
the iron curtain, would change their lives for the better (Rose 1995).
In the years since those dramatic times, however, many post-communist citi-
zens feel that they have been let down, perhaps even cheated, by the new system that
quickly replaced the old one. Even though a vast majority in every post-communist
country does not want to go back in time, the political and economic systems that
have since taken root seem to have disappointed most people, who had hoped and
believed that a new political and economic system would live up to their ideals. This
sense of disappointment has only increased demobilization and withdrawal from
public activities in the years since the collapse of communism.
Although this chapter has presented a rather homogeneous picture of post-
communist civil society, there is also a great deal ofand perhaps growing
diversity within the region. Leaving aside the countries of Central Asia and the
Caucasus, which do not t into the geographic denition of post-communist
Europe, there is a signicant divide between countries that have been steadily
democratizing since the demise of communism and those that have struggled with
democracy (and in some cases have clearly become more authoritarian) over the
past decade. This distinction was solidied and institutionalized in the enlargement
process of the European Union (EU), which ten post-communist countries joined
between 2004 and 2007. EU accession has not been a panacea for post-communist
civil society. Nonetheless, there is clearly a greater need to distinguish between post-
communist countries that have acceded and those that have not, even if the com-
mon social legacy of communism remains strong throughout the region.
4. Civil Society in Nondemocratic

Contexts
An important question in the comparative study of civil societyone that is raised
when considering the post-communist cases, both comparatively and historically
is whether civil society does (or can) exist in nondemocratic and/or nonwestern
countries. There are a variety of possible answers to this question, spanning from a
very narrow to a quite broad conceptualization of civil society. A narrow view posits
that civil society derives from the particular theoretical tradition and practical his-
torical experience of the West. According to this position, civil society refers speci-
cally to the kinds of voluntary organizations that emerged from the American and
West European models, and in some sense, civil society can only exist in societies
that share this historical background. In other words, civil society is viewed as an
inherently western concept that arose out of a distinct historical experience, giving
it a decidedly ethnocentric bias.
In contrast, a broad view of civil societyof the type that is generally stressed
by anthropologistsargues that its conceptualization and measurement should be
expanded from its narrow focus on voluntary organizations in democracies, so that
it can treat all forms of social organization and practices as different manifestations
of the same general phenomenon. According to this perspective, each country has
its own civil society, and any cross-national variation lies in the form that civil soci-
ety takes, rather than in its level or strength.
A third approach occupies the middle ground between these two positions.
According to this view, civil society is not a universal concept that exists everywhere,
but it does take shape in many different guises. Therefore, the original denition
and empirical manifestation of civil society should not be diluted and/or stretched
in order to t contexts that are vastly different, since this may result in the mischar-
acterization of some of the most interesting and unique forms of political and social
action in many countries by forcing them into the civil society mold. At the same
time, however, unlike in the rst and narrow view, this approach does not restrict
the applicable empirical terrain to countries that are culturally or historically west-
ern. There is an actual substantive and practical basis for the study of civil society
in nonwestern countries, even while still viewing it as a specically western concept,

since many of these societies have attempted over the past few decades to westernize
and democratize. From this perspective, regime type is the crucial distinction, and
what one might call classical civil society can only really exist within countries
that have democratic institutions (regardless of their western-ness). This is not to
say, however, that countries must be advanced liberal democracies in order for civil
society to exist, but rather that they should meet the basic minimal criteria of pro-
cedural democracy. In other words, civil society is a legitimate, appropriate, and
important object of exploration and analysis within countries that can be consid-
ered electoral democracies. But to extend the concept beyond those limits to vari-
ous types of authoritarian regimes may risk lumping together too many different
phenomena and forms of organization under one already beleaguered set of ideas.
This conclusion leads to an obvious rebuttal: what about Eastern Europe? Is it
not true that civil society helped to lead to the collapse of communism? In some
sense, the answer has to be yes, especially since events in Eastern Europe (and
Poland in particular) led to the rebirth and widespread popularization of the term
civil society itself. But at the same time, the East European example shows pre-
cisely why it is so important to distinguish between civil society in democratic
regimes and civil society in other types of nondemocratic regimes, for in just a few
short yearsas discussed abovethe countries of post-communist Europe went
from being the midwife of the term to having some of the least participatory civil
societies in the world. In other words, the oppositional civil society of the late 1980s
was clearly very different from the democratic civil society of today. This important
distinction suggests that scholars should avoid the temptation of lumping different
kinds of civil society together, and at the very least, that they should take care to
develop subcategories such as these in order to capture the distinctive dynamics
that occur in different types of countries.
This debate is by no means resolved. As the comparative study of civil society
continues to grow and expand (see, for example, Heinrich and Fioramonti 2007),
and as more scholars develop empirical indices to measure the strength of both civil
society and democracy, the concept of civil society will continue to be applied to a
wide array of countries and contextsperhaps with mixed results for those con-
cerned with systematic and meaningful comparisons.
5. Conclusion: Implications for

Post-Communist Democracy
The consistently low levels of participation in civil society organizations that mark
out large parts of post-communist Europe yield a host of differentand often
emotionally chargedinterpretations about the prospects for democracy in the
region. On the one hand, the lack of engagement and participation by ordinary citi-
zens can be viewed as indicative of the hollow, procedural, and formalistic character
of post-communist democracy. Does democracy still mean rule by the people if
the people choose not to participate in ruling? One could even argue that, with
civic organizations lacking the active support of the population, such a hollow
democracy will remain at risk of being toppled by hostile forces, whether based on
nondemocratic historical traditions or on a new antidemocratic ideology.
On the other hand, a more optimistic interpretation would suggest that the
absence of a vibrant civil society poses no obstacle to democracy and democratic
stability. Indeed, political participation and trust in government are supposedly in
decline throughout much of the world, as people withdraw from public activities in
increasingly large numbers. Perhaps the post-communist present, having skipped
or bypassed the stage of an active participatory democracy, actually resembles the
democratic future of the rest of the world. Moreover, in terms of democratic stabil-
ity, some argue that a strong and vibrant civil society can actually contribute to the
breakdown of democracy (Berman 1997). If this is true, then democracy in post-
communist Europe may actually be enhanced by the absence of citizen participa-
tion in voluntary organizations.
My own view of post-communist democracy differs from both these interpre-
tations. Even if participation in voluntary organizations is declining in the older
democracies, this does not mean that levels of organizational membership around
the world are converging. More importantly, in terms of the breakdown or survival
of democracy, I do not view post-communist democracy as doomed to collapse or
failure, nor do I believe that the weakness of civil society is a good sign for the future
of a healthy democracy. Instead, the weakness of civil society constitutes a distinc-
tive element of post-communist democracy, a pattern that points to a qualitatively
different relationship between citizens and the state, and one that may well persist
throughout the region for at least several more decades.
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chapter 12

MIDDLE EAST
eberhard kienle
In the Middle East,1 the fate of civil society has been closely tied to the political
regimes in place and their transformation, or lack of it, over time, a fate crucially
affected by the strong autocratic features that have characterized the exercise of state
power in most of the region. The collapse of the anciens rgimes in Tunisia and
Egypt in early 2011, prompted by large-scale street protests initiated mainly by infor-
mally-organized young men and women, allowed people to associate without restric-
tions for the rst time in decades. As a result, civil society organizations have grown
in their visibility. However, other Arab regimes, and Iran, have so far managed to
contain the effects of the Arab spring and remain largely authoritarian, in spite of
regular but rigged elections and other forms of democratic window dressing
(Schlumberger 2007; Azimi 2008). Turkey underwent progressive bouts of political
change after World War II, and initiated a transition from authoritarian rule in the
1990s (Zrcher 2003). An independent state since 1948, Israel has been a democracy
in the sense that its citizens are able to choose their rulers at regular intervals in free
elections. Israels Arab citizens are eligible and able to vote, though their liberties
have been restricted in other domains. However, since the occupation of the West
Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza in 1967, Israel has exercised de facto authority over a
large Palestinian population that is excluded from the election of its Israeli rulers
who moreover severely limit the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority.
Coinciding with the end of the Cold War, the numerical growth of certain kinds of
civil society organization (CSOs) in some authoritarian states of the Middle East seemed
to reect broader political changes that were captured by notions such as the third
wave of democratization (Norton 1995/6; Huntington 1991). However, although ulti-
mately related to transformations at a global scale, the advent of civil society in the
Middle East was the direct result of government attempts to selectively redene liberties
civil society in the middle east 147
in order to cushion external pressures for political liberalization and open up new fund-
ing opportunities that were technically reserved for nonstate actors. Under the political
constraints prevailing in most Arab states and in Iran, the growth of CSOs since the 1980s
has not signicantly strengthened civil society as such, though conditions vary in line
with the overall degree of political freedom that exists in each country. Even the more
favorable situation in Turkey has not yet enabled civil society to assert itself as a major
force. Only Israel, where strong CSOs predated the creation of the state, has continued
to negotiate a range of accommodations with civil society similar to those found in
North America and Europe. Roughly the same applies to the occupied Palestinian ter-
ritories, where the Oslo accords of 1993 led to the broadly simultaneous growth of CSOs
and political institutions. Attempts by Israel and its allies to contain and inect state-
building activities have strengthened civil society organizations in the territories even
though military occupation has entailed a specic form of authoritarian rule.
Today the most hospitable grounds for CSOs are Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, the
Palestinian Territories, Tunisia and Egypt. Morocco still compares favorably with
Algeria, Jordan, and Syria; while in Iraq, CSOs are only just beginning to reemerge
after decades of severe repression. In the Arab Peninsula, Kuwait is among the least
restrictive countries and Saudi Arabia among the most. No CSOs are allowed to
exist in Libya. Turkey counts several tens of thousands of CSOs, Egypt between
15,000 and 20,000, and Tunisia some 8,000, but such gures should not be confused
with authentic measures of the strength or health of civil society.2
In most countries, CSOs continue to be heavily regimented and their indepen-
dence is constrained by government interference. Overstepping the lines set by the state
may result in the closure of CSOs, as happened in 2000 to the Ibn Khaldun Center in
Cairo, for example. Most governments remain particularly hostile to organizations that
promote human, civil, and political rights, while understanding the utility of those that
promote human development activities in a period marked out by calls for the retreat
of the state, and corresponding changes in international donor policies. Unsurprisingly,
regional and national human development reports produced by the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) in cooperation with Arab governments mainly stress
the development-related activities of CSOs. However, unlike their counterparts else-
where, such CSOs have been unable to inuence relations between state and society or
among different social groups in any substantial way.3
Above and beyond the deleterious effects of authoritarianism, the weakness of
civil society in most of the Middle East reects the broad absence of the social and
political transformations that were associated with the rise of capitalism and the
industrial revolution as they unfolded in the global North from the eighteenth cen-
tury onwards. Consonant with forms of social organization that are typical of
peripheral capitalism, strong imagined communities based on family, religion,
and other particularistic identities continue to govern the lives of individuals and to
aggregate their interests. The societal divisions that ensue exacerbate the search for
legitimacy, national identity, and independence from foreign domination by con-
tested rulers and their attempts to dominate society by destroying all competing
power centres.4 In Israel the increasing importance of imagined communities
other than the nation remains balanced by the living legacy of social transformations
that historically affected Europeans, and therefore Jewish Europeans, whose modes
of social organization strongly inuenced Israeli civil society and the Israeli state.
These generally unfavorable conditions should not, however, obscure the many
attempts by Middle Easterners to establish CSOs and similar organizations which
date back to the nineteenth century or even earlier. Some of these attempts were
highly successful, at least so long as generally difcult political conditions did not
become entirely hostile. No less importantly, they served as precedents for later ini-
tiatives, thus establishing local traditions of collective action and voluntary associa-
tion that predate the civil society enthusiasms of the late twentieth and early
twenty-rst centuries. Against numerous odds, individuals of all religious back-
grounds have participated in these attempts, thus invalidating culturalist claims
that civil society has no place in Islam (Gellner 1996; Lewis 1994).
1. The History of Civil Society

in the Middle East
In many parts of the Middle East, CSOs and less formal voluntary associations
began to be established well before the 1980s and 1990s. Some were based on reli-
gious forms of philanthropy and charitable giving such as the Islamic waqf, and
others were secular in nature. Social networks and trade associations, for example,
shaped urban life at least from the Middle Ages onwards (Raymond 1985; Massignon
1920). In the latter part of the nineteenth century, associations concerned with the
equivalent of todays human development issues were created in the Ottoman
Empire and Qajar Iran, alongside many other informal circles and networks.
Inspired by Enlightenment ideas as well as their local critics these associations aimed
at reforming religion, education, health services, gender attitudes, and society at
large. Most operated within established religious boundaries, sometimes merely
formalizing existing charitable initiatives by Muslims or representatives of other
faiths. However, by the early years of the twentieth century, cross-religious and sec-
ular associations had developed in countries like Lebanon and Egypt. Most of the
reforms they proposed were at least implicitly political since they questioned exist-
ing power relations, including arrangements through which Europeans dominated
much of the Middle East. As such they were also promoted by secret societies and
other nationalist groupings that emerged among the lites of the Ottoman Empire
and at the eve of the 1906 constitutional revolution in Iran (Azimi 2008; Hourani
1983; Karam 2006; Ben Nssa 1991).
In a number of Arab countries, membership-based professional syndicates were
formed over the rst half of the twentieth century, with the lawyers syndicate (or bar
association) in Egypt being registered as early as 1912. Established by law, they fre-
quently managed to emancipate themselves from government tutelage, protect the
interests of their members, and play an important role in regulating the activities of
professions as diverse as engineers, physicians, accountants, and actors. Largely self-

governing chambers of commerce and employers associations catered to the needs of
capital owners. Simultaneously, trade unions became active defenders of workers
rights. In Egypt, the Federation of Trade Unions was founded in 1921 and by the 1940s,
some 170 unions were active in the country. In Syria the rst trade union of sorts was
set up by textile workers in 1925, to be followed by other more or less durable organi-
zations in the 1930s and thereafter. In the 1950s the Union Marocaine du Travail
(UMT) counted more than 570,000 members, thus constituting the largest of several
tens of thousands of associations in the country at the time. The 1920s and 1930s also
saw the formation of new organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (and
beyond) and the (mainly Maronite Christian) Phalanges in Lebanon that catered to
the social needs and demands of those lower-middle-class constituencies that dened
themselves in religious terms. Seeking to establish political communities consonant
with their social and religious values, these organizations frequently participated in
power struggles and at times suffered from severe repression.
In the 1950s and 1960s, coups and revolutions in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen,
Libya, and Algeria put an end to the colonial regimes, monarchies, and parliamen-
tary republics that were dominated by foreigners, royal families, and other owners
of land and capital. The so-called socialist regimes that replaced them dissolved
existing CSOs or transformed them into corporatist tools to weaken potential
opposition and control society. The consolidation of the Jordanian and Moroccan
monarchies in the 1960s and 1970s had similar debilitating effects. Nevertheless,
some constituencies managed to maintain a considerable degree of independence
as illustrated by the Egyptian judges who in the late 1960s confronted President
Nasser, or the Damascus Chamber of Commerce which helped the Syrian regime to
overcome a major standoff with the Islamist opposition in the 1980s. Su orders
also continued to exist and operate throughout this period. In some countries selec-
tive economic liberalization and political decompression from the 1970s onwards
allowed various social forces to regroup and express themselves (Longuenesse 2007;
Goldberg 1996; Beinin/Lockman 1988; Beinin 2010; Ashford 1961; Berger 1970;
Blanchi 1989; Lawson 1982).
Following a different trajectory, Turkey eased restrictions on CSOs and trade
unions after 1945, when political pluralism replaced single party rule. Trade unions
and other CSOs were dissolved after the coup of 1980, but following years of repres-
sion, issue-based organizations came to the fore from the 1990s onwards (Zrcher
2003). In Iran, relatively formal ways to defend collective interests date back to the
eve of the constitutional revolution. Printers established a union in 1906, and by
1944 the Central Council of United Trade Unions afliated to the Communist Tudeh
Party claimed as many as 400,000 members (Kazemi 1980). Increasing authoritari-
anism, in particular after the oil boom of 1973, entailed the growing domination of
CSOs by the monarchy and then the Islamic Republic. Nonetheless, CSOs were
active in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 revolution and regained some strength
under Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami whofollowing the Iran-Iraq war
sought a leaner state and the support of the middle classes (Azimi 2008).
Preceded by the voluntary organizations of the Yishuv set up by Jewish settlers

under the Ottoman Empire and the British mandate, the state of Israel selectively
incorporated some such organizations and established a division of labor with oth-
ers. These arrangements included international NGOs such as the World Zionist
Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel that supported CSOs inside the
country. Complex arrangements such as those established with the major trade
union, the Histadrut, often blurred the boundaries between the state and civil soci-
ety. Over time, the partial retreat of the state, funding from abroad, and differences
over political choices (including the future of the Palestinian territories) strength-
ened CSOs in Israel. As in other countries, global developments increasingly favored
issue-based approaches to social change (Horrowitz and Lissak 1978; Kimmerling
1989; Wolffsohn 1987).
The early emergence of CSOs in the Middle East does not signify the early emer-
gence of a fully edged civil society. In most places and periods, CSOs have had to
cope with the various political restrictions referred to above, which have reduced their
broader impact. They have also primarily furthered causes championed by numerical
minorities such as the wealthy, the educated, organized labor, and activists. Challenging
some denitions of civil society, a fair number have also played an active part in
national and other political struggles, while others have represented the concerns of
nonvoluntary imagined communities based on language or religion rather than
citizenship. Hence, the organizational forms in which civil society manifests itself in
most of the contemporary Middle East illustrate these continued weaknesses.
2. The Forms of Civil Society

in the Middle East
History, politics, and the broader social context have come together to produce a
range of civil society ecosystems in which different associational forms are layered
one on top of the other. In their details these ecosystems vary across countries, but
in nearly all cases they are fragile and incomplete. In most Arab countries and Iran,
political restrictions limit larger, membership-based CSOs to professional syndi-
cates, sports clubs, and development or community-based associations that seek to
supplement inadequate government services. Except in Morocco, Lebanon, and
Turkey, trade unions have been largely controlled by the state, but even in these
countries some unions are close to the state or to political parties. There are no
unions at all in Saudi Arabia. In Tunisia, unions partly escaped state control; in
Egypt, edgling, independent unions re-emerged in 2009. In both countries orga-
nized labor played a role in the 201011 Arab Spring protests.
In the Arab states and Iran, employers organizations and chambers of com-
merce also frequently lack independence. Religious organizations with a political
agenda such as the Muslim Brothers often have to operate in a semiclandestine man-
ner, which reduces their active membership far below the numbers of sympathizers
they have among the public. Membership in human rights and other advocacy orga-
nizations is also limited for political reasons. Exceptions are Turkey and now Tunisia
and Egypt. Advocates of political reform sometimes prefer to register as companies
to avoid restrictive legislation governing CSOs. Many CSOs consist of a relatively
small number of committed activists who are morally supported by a board of pub-
lic gures. Most activists hail from the educated and middle classes, or from specic
social backgrounds such as organized labor. A more recent form of CSOs are the
family-based philanthropic foundations that have become active in charitable work,
health, and education in some countries, thus broadening the scope of activities car-
ried out by the older waqfs or religious endowments (Peters and Deguilhem 2002;
Ibrahim and Sherif 2008; Guazzone and Pioppi 2009; Norton 1995/6).5
The capacities of most CSOs in the Middle East are weak, although there are
notable exceptions such as the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services
in Egypt and the Lebanese Union of the Physically Handicapped. Weak capacities
reect political restrictions on CSO development, but they also stem from patrimo-
nial patterns of organizational governance. Though part and parcel of prevailing
forms of social organization, these patterns are in turn reinforced by political repres-
sion, because CSO staff fear manipulation and subversion by regime supporters,
and therefore avoid delegating responsibilities to others. In terms of their structure,
organization, and governance, most CSOs are mere homonyms of their counter-
parts in the global North (Khallaf/Tr 2008).
In the broader sense, contemporary CSOs in the Middle East also include
countless informal associations such as savings clubs that have been established in
neighborhoods and workplaces. In the Arab Peninsula and Iran, people in search of
status and inuence often open their homes to diwaniyyas or dowres in which
(mainly male) publics debate issues of common interest (Miller 1969; Ttreault
2000; Dazi-Hni 2005). Frequently, bonds based on family, religion, language,
neighborhood, or professional identities are mobilized for collective action in line
with interests and opportunity structures that range from lightly coordinated
strategies of quiet encroachment to petitions, sit-ins, demonstrations, and strikes
(Tarrow 1994).
The traditions of industrial action referred to above have often been inter-
rupted by periods of political repression in which only small, clandestine groups of
workers remained active. However, in some countries recent economic reforms
have led to increasing unrest; in Egypt, for instance, some 1.5 million workers have
gone out on strike since 2001 (Beinin 2010). Over the last decade or so, mobile
phones, blogs, and electronic mail have further enabled people to act in concert,
particularly under conditions of repression, and social media played an important
part in the protests that culminated in the 2009 uprising in Iran and the Arab spring
of 201011. Nonetheless, in the face of internet inltration by the police, the efcacy
of these technologies depended on elaborate modes of decentralized coordination by
highly exible, mostly young, protesters. Political repression continues to push many
people to develop individual coping strategies rather than to coordinate activities

collectively (Bayat 1997; Bennani-Chrabi/Fillieule 2003; Zubaida 2008; Seib 2007).
Restrictions on political parties sometimes prompt opponents to act under the
label of CSOs. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, for example,
sought to instrumentalize professional syndicates. Conversely, toothless opposition
parties may be considered CSOs since they are effectively prevented from coming to
power. Finally, authoritarian rulers, their friends, and family members have estab-
lished a number of royal or governmental NGOs that benet from ofcial pro-
tection and attempt to crowd out other CSOs working in the same arenas (Kienle
2000; Schlumberger 2007; Hawthorne 2004). The dening impact that authoritar-
ian rule and social fragmentation have had on the forms of civil society in the
Middle East is highlighted by a comparison with the situation in Israel, where the
polyarchic nature of the state and its social foundations has shaped CSOs in ways
similar to those in the global North, despite the fact that the history of state-building,
socialist, and cooperative traditions as embodied in the kibbutzim and moshavim,
and external funding, continue to account for important specicities (Wolffsohn
1987; Laskier 2008).
3. The Norms of Civil Society

in the Middle East
Subject to a history of authoritarian government and the continuation of so many
political restrictions, civil society in the Middle East is often considered as a force
thatalmost by denitionopposes authoritarianism and works towards the lib-
eral, democratic transformation of states and societies. However, the diversity of
CSOs in terms of their forms, traditions, objectives, and positions with regard to
ruling regimes and religion precludes any homogeneity in terms of the norms and
values they publicly embrace.
In the Arab states, Turkey, and Iran, most CSOs that focus on human devel-
opment continue to conceive of themselves as members of educated, moderniz-
ing elites that are ghting ignorance and backward traditions. More often than
not their development strategies are built around the state and reveal a prefer-
ence for top-down decision making. In the Arab states, moreover, they remain
inspired by the largely egalitarian ethos of the socialist revolutions of the 1950s
and 1960s. At the same time, these organizations grapple with the constraints
imposed by international donors who increasingly advocate neoliberal values
such as small government, market-based mechanisms of service delivery, and the
privatization of risks and responsibilities. Foreign funding has become a key fac-
tor in determining CSO activities and the values that underpin them. CSOs in
Iran cannot accept Western funding but are free to embrace globalized values such
as those of economic liberalism, or at least those elements that the regime consid-
ers consistent with Islam.
Across the Middle East, private-sector sponsored research organizations such as
the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies, and private-sector lobbies such as the
Association of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen, openly push for the neolib-
eral transformation of labor laws, welfare regimes, and education. Frequently these
voices are close to authoritarian regimes which have increasingly allied themselves
with business circles even when they defend egalitarian values rhetorically. On the
other hand, organizations specializing in human rights and political reform tend to
emphasize the values of political rather than economic liberalism. Alongside their
traditional concerns for free speech, habeas corpus and political rights, they increas-
ingly stress the importance of economic and social rights. Some CSOs such as Better
Life in Egypt have also developed rights-based approaches to human development.
However, mainstream conceptions of family values and gender roles are rarely chal-
lenged. While womens rights are gradually entering public debate, issues of sexual-
ity (especially outside marriage) are advocated by very few CSOs, such as Helem in
Lebanon.
Advocating for supposedly universal values and accepting foreign funds often
go hand in hand with accusations of foreign interference, which result in part from
recurrent attempts to de-legitimatize CSOs as foreign stooges by governments
who themselves accept foreign funding. In addition, however, they also reect
deeply rooted concerns about neoimperialist designs of domination, including
moral subversion. The generalized perception of asymmetrical relations with the
global North has often led CSOs to stress national independence and anti-imperial-
ism, sometimes to the point of defending authoritarian regimes. Simultaneously it
has strengthened the identication with largely conservative cultural values consid-
ered as endogenous, in particular those associated with Islam and the Eastern
churches. Numerous CSOs openly dene themselves as Muslim or Christian, thus
fuelling debates between advocates of religion-based and citizenship-based con-
cepts of civil society.
However, the values that are actually practiced by CSOs converge to a far greater
degree than those they publicly espouse. As modes of CSO governance remain
largely personalized, paternalistic, and hierarchical, CSOs are frequently identied
with their founders, who tend to stay in power over considerable lengths of time.
Senior positions in CSOs are often used as sources of patronage and status, entailing
symbolic and material rewards that outweigh incentives to promote social change.
Therefore, broad-based participation, collective decision making, a search for con-
sensus, the delegation of powers, and the division of labor are not common features
of Middle Eastern CSOs, even though they are practiced by a number of organiza-
tions such as the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. In Israel, CSOs are highly
diverse in terms of the values they propagate, reecting deep ideological divides
between right and left, advocates of the religious and secular organization of the
community, Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories and the peace movement,
and many others. Yet Israeli CSOs converge towards a comparatively more
bureaucratic logic in their activities and internal procedures; reecting societal

transformations that in many ways have been similar to those in the global North.
Under pressure from major donors who are often ignorant of history and the
complexities of social change, CSO governance worldwide, including in the Middle
East, has become increasingly subjected to narrowly dened cost-benet analysis
and impact assessment techniques. Under the pretext of professionalizing CSO
activities, this form of results-based management privileges simplistic, easily mea-
surable, short-term objectives over broader, longer-term aims whose realization
partly depends on uncontrollable actors and processes. The emphasis of these
approaches on technical competence often limits broader civic engagement and
creates new, unequal relationships between supposedly knowledgeable elites and
the ignorant masses.
In summary, gaps between the values that CSOs embrace and the values they
actually practice, together with the sheer diversity of actors and the contexts in
which they operate, translate into considerable normative pluralism. However, this
pluralism remains heavily tainted by politically illiberal and socially conservative
attitudes among CSOs that are close to the ruling regimes, defend religious values,
or simply seek to develop the poor and the underprivileged as passive recipients
of charity or foreign aid.
4. Middle Eastern Public Spheres

Across the Middle East, the ability of public spheres to mediate normative pluralism
has been restricted by authoritarianism and by the broader historical processes that
have reshaped societies and strengthened or weakened competing power centres
(Gle 1996; Shami 2008). Some Arab countries had a relatively important public
sphere in earlier periods of their existence. In Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, the increasing
centralization of power after the revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s destroyed that
sphere, as did the consolidation of monarchical rule in post-independence Morocco
and Jordan. Only the plural politics of Lebanon enabled a public sphere to exist con-
tinuously after independence, even though it was affected by the various internal and
other wars that the country experienced from the late 1950s onwards. In these earlier
periods, public debate and deliberation were always enriched by CSOs and their
more informal avatars, but they were ultimately dominated by privately owned
media and political parties (Hourani 1983; Eickelman/Anderson 2003; Shami 2008).
In a number of countries such as Egypt and Morocco, the public sphere began to
expand again in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, when governments selectively
reformed the political system in order to perpetuate authoritarian rule under chang-
ing conditions. In other cases like Tunisia and Syria, similar controlled openings were
soon closed again. In parts of the Arab Peninsula modest political adjustments in
response to the challenges posed by the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990, the
ensuing war, and later declines in oil and gas revenues allowed some expression of
conicting views, and in Iraq itself a new, putative public sphere came into being
after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Especially in Tunisia and Egypt, the
Arab spring at least temporarily opened up the public sphere to an extent unseen in
decades. The history of Iran and Turkey provides other telling examples of the degree
to which public spheres depend on the centralization or decentralization of power.
In Iran the 1979 revolution and the collapse of the monarchy temporarily opened up
space for debate and deliberation, while in Turkey the 1980 military coup temporar-
ily destroyed a public sphere that had been expanding for some years. As for Israel,
the relative strength of the public sphere is an obvious corollary to a state that has
been based on competing power centres from its inception, though external conict
and related factors have frequently contributed to narrowing the space for public
debate, not unlike in the Arab states.
Advocacy and research organizations such as Partners in Development in Egypt,
Muwatin in the Palestinian Territories, the Bouabid Foundation in Morocco, and
Keshev in Israel have fostered contemporary debates about social, economic, and
political choices. Among the earliest issue-based CSOs created by Arabs, human rights
organizations broke the silence about state torture in the region and forced govern-
ments to openly confront human rights abuses. Unsurprisingly, however, sports and
savings clubs, classical development organizations, and charities have had lesser effects
on the public sphere. More recently, the target populations of attempts to build social
justicesuch as villagers deprived of drinking water, women refugees seeking profes-
sional qualications, or factory workers on strike for decent payhave entered the
public sphere, largely on the back of successful attempts at collective action.
Nevertheless, the public sphere remains largely populated and dominated by actors
who are able to mobilize nancial, intellectual, and social capital. In general, neither
CSOs nor the masses enjoy such inuence. In Egypt, for example, the majority of the
poor who, depending on poverty lines and other criteria, account for anything between
40 percent and 80 percent of the population (Sabry 2009), largely remain on the mar-
gins of the public sphere as it is commonly dened. The most inuential actors thus
remain the increasingly lively print and audiovisual media as well as new websites and
blogs run by commercial companies, public gures, or (would-be) politicians. One
important exception is the expansion of the blogosphere and social media, where
decentralized, multilateral conversations involving larger numbers of ordinary indi-
viduals have created the beginnings of an interactive public.
5. Conclusion
In most Arab states and Iran, authoritarian rule and strong non-voluntary forms
of social organization continue to impose signicant limits on independent asso-
ciational life and the strength of public spheres. Though important in some
respects, contemporary economic developments have rarely entailed the emer-

gence of competing power centers or other societal transformations on the scale
that helped independent organizations and public spaces to emerge elsewhere in
the world. The privatization of public-sector companies, for example, has largely
beneted entrepreneurs with close ties to ruling regimes. Thus far, the facebook
revolutions of 20102011 have engendered counter powers of sorts only in Tunisia
and Egypt. Though beneting from existing civil society networks and capacities,
they fed largely on virtual collective action that was mobilized independently of
formal organizations. Able to mobilize intellectual, technological, organizational,
and material resources, the protagonists of the Arab Spring also beneted from
international support. By effectively challenging authoritarian rule these informal
actors should strengthen the position of existing CSOs, and at the same time cre-
ate new and more formal organizations.
While illustrating the limits of denitions that restrict civil society to formally-
established CSOs, many of these actors also openly pursue political aims such as the
departure of incumbent rulers and the exercise of inuence over future appoint-
ments and policies. In countries where these efforts fail to replace authoritarian
rulers, or at least force historical compromises onto them, political and civil liber-
ties will continue to suffer from serious restrictions, and instead of shaping the
state, civil society and the public sphere will continue to be shaped by it.
As far as Turkey is concerned, civil society is likely to grow further if the eco-
nomic and political changes of the last decades maintain their momentum.
Developments in Israel will continue to resemble those in the global North. A
potential Palestinian state may face a relatively strong civil society that has been
able to grow and consolidate itself thanks to the weakness of local political insti-
tutions. Provided that the gains of the Arab Spring are not rolled back by the
restoration of authoritarian rule or captured by some of their own protagonists at
the expense of others, the Middle East may henceforth provide more fertile
ground for civil society to grow and develop in locally-grounded ways.
NOTES
1. By Middle East I refer to the Arab states, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinian
territories. Historically dened by political and strategic concerns, the region has little
internal coherence in terms of political or social organization.
2. Extrapolations from UNDP (2002, 161)
3. See for instance Stiles (2002). The main exception is the Palestinian territories
(cf Keating et al. 2005).
4. In the sense of the argument developed by Rueschemeyer et al. (1992); for the
original concept of imagined communities, see Anderson (1991).
5. For country surveys, summaries and comparisons see: Human Rights Watch
(annual); Bertelsmann Foundation (ed., 2010 and www.bertelsmann-transformation-
index.de); and the Arab Reform Initiative (ed.), 2010.
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chapter 13
CIVIL SOCIETY IN CHINA
jude howell
This chapter reviews the development of civil society in China since the start of
economic reforms in the late 1970s, and analyzes the key constraints and opportuni-
ties shaping its past and future development. It argues that market reforms, subse-
quent socioeconomic changes, and technological and political factors have shaped
the trajectory of civil society since 1978. Leadership concerns about political control
and stability have been the overriding constraint on the full ourishing of civic
organizing in China, leading to incremental cycles of expansion and contraction.
The term civil society is used here to describe the realm of independent citizen
organizing around shared concerns and interests. It is thus distinct from the state
and the market, though in practice the boundaries between these three domains are
blurred and messy. This is particularly the case in China, where the state continues
to wield considerable power and authority over society. Empirically, the realm of
civil society encompasses a range of action and organising that varies in degrees of
formality and legality. At one end of the spectrum it includes organizations that are
closely related to the Communist Party such as the All-China Federation of Trades
Unions (ACFTU) or government-sponsored nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs); in the middle of the spectrum are more independent organizations with
legal status such as professional associations or business associations; and further
along the continuum lie more loosely organized, nonregistered networks, salons,
and discussion groups. At the far end of this spectrum are illegal organizations,
some of which would not enjoy legal status anywhere such as criminal gangs, traf-
cking networks, and drug cartels; and others which are prohibited for political
reasons such as secessionist movements and religious sects that would be more
likely to be tolerated in a liberal democratic polity.
The chapter begins by outlining the development of civil society in the post-
Mao era. It then analyzes the social, economic, technological, and political fac-
tors that have shaped the contours of civil society. In particular it examines those
variables that underpin the expansion of civil society spaces and those that have
contributed to their contraction or stagnation. The chapter ends by considering
the future prospects for civil society development in China.
1. The Development of Civil Society

in China After 1978
In the three decades before the launch of market reforms in 1978, the state exerted
tight control over the spaces for independent civic organizing. After Liberation in
1949 and years of civil war, the newly triumphant Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
needed to consolidate its power, reconstruct the economy, and minimize both inter-
nal and external threats to its rule. The Cold War led not only to the economic
blockade of China but also to its political isolation from the capitalist West, aggra-
vated further by Chinas gradual break with the Soviet Union from the late 1950s
onwards. The long enduring Cold War fostered increasing economic self-reliance
along Maoist lines as well as the maintenance of tight societal controls through
ideological and organizational means.
A key element of societal control was the establishment of intermediary orga-
nizations linking the party to society. These mass organizations served to transmit
party policy downwards to key constituencies of society such as youth, workers, and
women, and in turn reect their views upwards to the party, thereby in theory real-
ising the principles of democratic socialism. The largest such mass organizations
were the All-China Federation of Women (ACWF), the ACFTU, and the Communist
Youth League (CYL)1. These intermediary organizations formed an integral part of
the Leninist style sociopolitical architecture of Maoist China, with their ofces,
staff, and activities being supported by the party-state. Apart from these key inter-
mediary institutions, the work unit (danwei) and the rural commune were also key
sites through which the party exerted control over society. As a result of the penetra-
tion of the state into the everyday life of Chinese society, there was little room for
citizens to organize spontaneously or independently. Though occasional protests
took place, such as the workers protests in Shanghai in 1957 (Perry 1994), they were
sharply put down, stymieing further collective action.
With the rise to power in 1978 of market-oriented reformers led by Deng
Xiaoping, the economic and social infrastructure of Maoist China underwent fun-
damental transformation. The diversication of ownership systems, the relaxation
of controls over rural-urban migration, the expansion of foreign trade, the intro-
duction of foreign investment, and the dismantling of the rural commune system
led to the pluralization of interests, and thereby increased social differentiation and
stratication. Aware that the old systems for connecting with societyand in par-
ticular the mass organizationswere no longer adequate for reaching out to an
increasingly complex society, from the late 1980s onwards the reformers began to
civil society in china 161
encourage the development of new forms of association. These included, for exam-
ple, trades associations, professional associations, learned societies, cultural and
sports clubs, chambers of commerce, and business associations. A key protagonist
of this opening up of space was the well-known economist Xue Muqiao. In an arti-
cle written in 1988 he argued that as the state took on a more indirect role in eco-
nomic management, so certain functions previously carried out by the state could
be passed over to traders and business people. These economic associations could
then serve as a bridge between the state and enterprises.
From the mid-1980s onwards, new social organizations (shehui zuzhi) mush-
roomed across China. It was against this background that China-watchers intro-
duced the concept of civil society into their analysis (White, Howell, and Shang
1996; Gold 1990; Gu 1993/4; He 1997; Huang 1993; Rowe 1993; Sullivan 1990). In doing
so, many sought not just to use the term to describe a sociological phenomenon of
increasing civic organization, but also to express a normative aspiration that such a
development might herald the democratization of China. The embracing of this
concept, moreover, reected broader global trends whereby popular democratic
movements in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa had led to the overthrow
of unpopular, authoritarian regimes. Indeed, East European scholars were the rst
to revitalize the idea of civil society to articulate their vision of a more democratic
polity and society (Keane 1988).
The growth of social organizations reached a peak in the late 1980s, when the
spread of Chinas democracy movement and the subsequent government clamp-
down in June 1989 brought their proliferation to a rapid halt. The party prohibited
all organizations deemed a threat to its continued rule, such as the various autono-
mous students unions and trades unions. The crackdown on protestors in
Tiananmen Square on June 4 led Western observers to be far more cautious in
declaring the emergence of a civil society in China and in predicting democratic
regime change.
In October 1989, the party began to assert greater order over the sphere of social
organizations by issuing new Management Regulations on the Registration of Social
Organizations, replacing the 1950 regulations. These made the process of registra-
tion more complex and demanding, with prospective social organizations now
required not only to register with the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA) but also to
identify a supervisory unit (guakao danwei) that would act as their sponsor and be
responsible for supervising the activities of the appended social organization. The
new regulations sought to establish a corporatist framework for governing social
organizations, limiting, for example, the number of associations in any one domain
to only one.2 The issuing of the 1989 regulations clearly slowed the pace of growth
of registered social organizations.
The tight grip of the party over society began to yield in the early 1990s as mar-
ket reformers began to gain the upper hand over the more ideologically conserva-
tive elements of the party. Deng Xiao Pings tour of Southern China in 1992 marked
this subtle shift in power and heralded a further deepening of economic reform. It
was within this context of political easing that the seeds of a new phase in the
development of civil society were sown. Two outstanding features distinguished this
new phase of development: rst, the proliferation of associations addressing the
needs and interests of social groups marginalized in the reform process; and second,
the growth of new forms of association that skillfully bypassed the need to register
as social organizations (Howell 2003). In the 1980s and early 1990s the majority of
registered social organizations were found in the realms of academia, business,
trades, culture, sports, arts, and professional interests. There were relatively few
independent organizations that concerned themselves with issues of poverty, social
disadvantage, or marginalization, or with public affairs. Peis (1998) analysis of a
sample of social organizations found that national-level charitable groups and
foundations increased from two in 1978 to only sixteen in 1992, making up just two
percent of all registered national social organizations. The paucity of charitable
groups and foundations was due in part to the ongoing provision of basic social
welfare through the urban state and collective sectors, albeit uneven in coverage.
Though the production process had been opened up to private investment, both
domestic and international, there was no for-prot or not-for-prot private sector
in welfare provision.
From the early 1990s onwards, a new stratum of organizations emerged that
sought to address the needs and interests of those who were vulnerable and margin-
alized in the reform processes. These associations took up issues such as HIV/AIDS,
domestic violence, poverty, disability, migrant workers rights, health and safety,
and environment and industrial pollution. Since not all of these organizations are
registered, establishing precise gures is not possible. Nevertheless, available evi-
dence points to several hundreds by the end of the 1990s (China Development Brief
2001). Though this stratum of organizing has developed rapidly in the 1990s, their
numbers remain limited, especially for groups such as sex workers or people living
with HIV/AIDS, who face much social prejudice.
The second distinguishing feature of civil society from the mid-1990s onwards
relates to the dynamic ingenuity of some Chinese citizens in bypassing the registra-
tion process. In November 1998 the party-state made further revisions to the regula-
tions on social organization in an attempt to gain further control over the
associational sphere. As a result the number of registered social organizations fell
from 220,000 in 1998 to 136,841 in 2000, almost a third less than the 181,060 groups
registered in 1993. Nevertheless this did not stop people from nding ways to orga-
nize around shared concerns. These included afliating as second- or third-level
bodies to a registered, established association, thereby obviating the need to regis-
ter; forming networks that got around the regulatory restriction on forming branch
organizations; organizing through projects sponsored often by foreign donors;
meeting informally through salons, clubs, and loose networks; setting up research
institutes and centers under the protective cover of universities; and registering as
nonprot companies with the Industrial and Commercial Bureau. In this way
dynamic people maneuvered around the regulatory regime, recapturing associa-
tional space and pushing back the barriers that the party had tried to impose.
These two features of civil society in China have continued into the new millen-
nium. At the same time, the party has introduced new laws to promote foundations
and charities. It has also further parsed out registered organizations, dividing them
into social organizations, foundations, and nonprot enterprises, each with its own
corresponding set of regulations. Apart from these registered entities the realm of
nonregistered organizing has remained alive, provided it stays within the limits of
acceptable activity as dened by the party. Nevertheless, there have been three key
moments in the rst decade of the new millennium that have prompted seemingly
contradictory state responses of restriction and promotion.
The rst of these relates to the more general global backlash against civil society
that was becoming apparent at the turn of the millennium (Carothers 2006, Howell
et al. 2007). A number of parallel trends were converging in the late 1990s to raise
concerns about the probity, accountability, and legitimacy of nongovernmental
organizations. These concerns gained increasing salience following the launch of
President George W. Bushs war on terror, which cast suspicion on charities as
entities that were vulnerable to misuse by terrorist groups (Howell and Lind 2009).
At the same time, President Vladimir Putin was also becoming increasingly con-
cerned about the role of foreign-funded NGOs in national political processes. In
particular he suggested that the Colour Revolutions that had occurred in the
Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan were in part engineered by Western-sponsored
democracy and rights groups. Putins concerns caused alarm amongst Chinas polit-
ical leaders, who from late spring 2005 quietly set about investigating international
NGOs, foundations, and foreign-funded local nongovernmental groups. Part of
this effort involved a review of NGOs that had registered under the Industrial and
Commercial Bureau so as to avoid the more stringent requirements of the MOCA,
and led to the closure of several NGOs deemed politically sensitive.
The second key moment was the boost given to volunteering and government
perceptions of nongovernmental organizations in the aftermath of the earthquake
in Sichuan province in 2008 (Teets 2009). This event brought into sharp relief the
Janus-like response of the party to collective action in China: on the one hand, the
party welcomed the contribution that volunteers and nongovernmental agencies
could make in emergency relief situations, adopting as a result a more constructive
approach towards such independent organizing. On the other hand, the party
recoiled at spontaneous initiatives that criticized local government ofcials for cor-
ruption, which they saw as underpinning the poor quality of school construction.
As a result, journalists, parents groups, and dynamic, critical individuals encoun-
tered the heavy hand of the state in response to their calls for accountability and
transparency, and their attempts to stimulate a public discussion about
corruption.
The third key moment that shaped civil societys recent development were the
Olympic Games, which were held in Beijing in 2008. Concerned about potential
terrorist attacks and protests,3 the party had already taken various measures in
preparing for the Olympics to ensure the smooth running of the event. Internet
cafes were closed down; websites blocked; human rights lawyers such as Teng Biao,
who had defended AIDS activists and Falun Gong practitioners, were detained,
and dissidents such as Hu Jia, a civic rights and AIDS campaigner, quickly removed
from sight. The outbreak of demonstrations in Tibet in March 2008 led to a crack-
down on protestors and monasteries in the province, enhanced surveillance of
websites, and attacks in the media on the inuence of external Tibetan campaigns.
In addition, attempts to thwart the progress of the Olympic ame around the
world so as to draw attention to issues such as Tibet, the Falun Gong (Ostergaard
2003) and secessionist struggles in Xinjiang province fuelled party leaders con-
cerns that external forces were seeking to interfere in Chinas affairs and destabilize
the country.
The development of civil society over the last three decades has thus been char-
acterized by cycles of contraction and expansion, with each cycle representing a
gradual widening of associational space. Nevertheless the boundaries of what is
possible continue to be contested and negotiated. Organizing around certain issues
such as secession in Tibet or Xinjiang, legalization of the Falun Gong, democratic
regime change, or independent trades unions remains out of bounds. In the next
section I look at the combination of factors that have underpinned this incremen-
tal, cyclical pattern of civil society development.
2. Explaining Cycles of Contraction

and Expansion
How can one account for this incremental, cyclical pattern of civil society develop-
ment in China? Answering this question requires an understanding both of the eco-
nomic, social, and political factors that have prompted citizen organizing and
government tolerance, and of the forces that have constrained the expansion of civil
society organizing. The rst point to make is that market reformers recognized the
need to open up intellectual spaces so that scientic and knowledge from the West
could be used to accelerate economic growth. The reinvigoration of the China
Association for Science and Technology and the growth of learned societies, profes-
sional associations, and academic associations reect this drive to promote mod-
ernization and fundamental economic change.
Second, as the reforms deepened in the 1990s, the institutional architecture of
social welfare was also gradually dismantled. In particular, the intensication of
state enterprise reform from the mid-1990s onwards led to the streamlining and
closure of state enterprises,4 bringing in its wake the laying off of millions of work-
ers (Lee 2007). The diversication of ownership systems along with state enterprise
reform weakened the work unit (danwei) both as a site of political and ideological
control over society and as a system for providing social welfare. Employees in state
enterprises, particularly larger ones, had typically enjoyed guaranteed life employ-
ment, pensions, and access to schooling and health care, crches, and kindergartens.
With the introduction of the market and increasingly competitive pressures on the
state sector, these systemic advantages have been gradually eroded. In response the
party-state has gradually, albeit slowly, introduced new systems of social security,
pensions, and social and medical insurance (Chan et al. 2008). However, migrant
workers remain poorly covered by these schemes, while access to healthcare has
become an increasingly divisive marker in society (Yao 2005).
The processes of state enterprise restructuring and social welfare reform have
provided a context in which the CCP has recognized the need for a more diverse
portfolio of service providers. Provincial governments across China have experi-
mented with community-based social welfare provision and have welcomed the
activities of newly established nongovernmental welfare groups, especially where
these address sensitive issues such as HIV/AIDS that local governments nd more
difcult to deal with openly (Howell 2003). Furthermore, the service sector has also
functioned as a way to absorb excess labor and workers laid off in the process of
state enterprise reform. Awareness among party and government leaders of the
potential contribution of nongovernmental organizations and voluntary activity to
welfare issues was further heightened in the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. As volun-
teers from all over China raised money for earthquake victims and travelled to
Sichuan to assist in relief operations, ofcial appreciation and acceptance of the
merits and utility of citizen action was strengthened. This not only reinvigorated
discussions around creating a more enabling legal and regulatory framework for
nongovernmental service-oriented organizations to operate, but also crystallized a
picture of citizen action that was acceptable to the partynamely, a service-oriented,
apolitical harmonious civil society.
The third factor favoring the expansion of nongovernmental initiatives was the
need to address the increasingly diverse and differentiated interests that had emerged
in China as a result of market reforms. With the weakening of the danwei system,
the development of a private sector, and the deepening of state enterprise reforms,
relying on the old mass organizations as the main intermediary channel between
the party and society became increasingly inadequate. Though the mass organiza-
tions have adapted their structures, approach, and activities to relate to their increas-
ingly complex and uid constituencies more effectively, the need for new interests
to nd organizational expression was important for ensuring social stability and
government control over society.
Technological change has also fuelled both the opening up of political space
and the ferocity of state resistance. In 2009 there were over 384 million Internet
users in China.5 While the party has developed sophisticated means for blocking
websites, blogs, and interactive media, such as the 2003 Golden Shield project,
Chinese netizens have also become increasingly adept at circumventing and
resisting these controls. For example, the well-known artist Ai Weiwei, who
designed the beehive stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, rallied Chinese neti-
zens to stay ofine on July 1, 2009 in response to the partys plans to introduce the
new Green Dam Youth Escort censorship software into all new computers. Faced
with widespread domestic criticism, the government backed down, declaring the
uploading of the software as optional. Given the horizontal linkages that the
Internet fosters both domestically and internationally, this will continue to be an
important battleground shaping the limits of intellectual expression and mobiliza-
tion in China.
Finally, Chinas engagement internationally has been a key spur to the devel-
opment of civil society,6 as illustrated, for example, by the rapid growth of more
independent womens organizations in the run-up to Chinas hosting of the Fourth
World Conference for Women in 1995 (Howell 1997). Women across China began
to set up salons, associations, and gender research groups, addressing the increas-
ingly diverse interests and needs of women and promoting a gender analysis
approach. The ACWF began to describe itself as an NGO and set about establish-
ing new afliated social organizations under its umbrella. External players have
also contributed to greater political tolerance for citizen organizing. Relevant here
is the growing layer of international development organizations that began to
operate in China from the 1990s onwards, supporting and encouraging the growth
of local nongovernmental groups to implement development projects aimed at
poverty reduction.
While a combination of factors has hastened the emergence of certain kinds of
civil society organizations in China, political and social factors have also constrained
the development of civil society. Aware of the destabilizing effects of rapid eco-
nomic reform and the growing socioeconomic and regional inequalities, party lead-
ers have kept a wary eye on citizen organizing, particularly at the time of key political
events such as the 17th Party Congress in October 2007 or the sixtieth anniversary
of CCP rule in October 2009. The party has consistently opposed any form of citi-
zen action around issues such as the separation of Tibet or Xinjiang from China; the
Falun Gong; organizing independent trades unions; setting up alternative parties
that challenge CCP rule; or initiatives calling for democracy. Moreover, the partys
tolerance for criticism is still crucially low. Two recent incidents testify to this. First,
citizens who protested the poor quality of construction that led to the collapse of
schools in the Sichuan earthquake have been harassed by security agencies. Second,
in the wake of the 2008 milk powder scandal, human rights lawyers and parents
seeking compensation and disclosure of state involvement have similarly been
harassed by the state. How much the party is prepared to tolerate has been subject
to ongoing contestation within the party, among academics, and by civil society
actors who test the boundaries in various ways. Maintaining social stability has been
a key concern and legitimizing discourse for the party in both clamping down on
civil society actors and in proceeding at a snail-like pace with improving the regula-
tory and legal regime.
The corporatist legal and regulatory framework has also had a constraining
effect on the development of a legally based civil society. By 2009 the party had
put in place a range of legal and policy measures to guide the registration and
management of nongovernmental organizations. These included, for example,

the 1998 Provisional Regulations for the Registration and Management of Popular
Non-Enterprise Work-Units, the 1999 Law on Donations to Public Welfare
Undertakings, the 2004 Regulations on the Management of Foundations and the
2008 Enterprise Income Tax Law, making it easier for companies to donate to
charities. However, a planned charity law still remains in draft form. Similarly
plans since 2004 to permit the legal registration of foreign social organizations
have continued to drag on, not least because of underlying suspicion about the
political intent of such organizations. While the development of such a frame-
work testies to the partys recognition of the relevance of these nongovernmen-
tal groups, the measures themselves still remain a barrier to their legalization and
public recognition. Hence the tendency since the late 1990s has been for many
groups to bypass these measures in innovative ways, and for local governments to
cast a blind eye, aware that these groups are harmless and/or useful in addressing
local needs and interests.
Another factor constraining the development of civil society has been party
leaders suspicion that external powers are trying to destabilize China. For example,
during the July 2009 Xinjiang riots, the CCP accused Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled leader
of the World Uighur Congress, of instigating the unrest. However China has also
skillfully manipulated U.S. politics to counter secessionist tendencies in Xinjiang.
After the U.S. government under President George W. Bush launched the so-called
war on terror in 2001, China agreed to demonstrate its alliance with the United
States in return for putting the East Turkestan Islamic Movement on the U.S. terror-
ist watch list. Chinese government suspicion of external inuences also lay behind
the investigation of international NGOs and foreign-funded Chinese NGOs in the
mid-2000s.
A further constraint has been the lack of understanding among political leaders
and the public about the role of nongovernmental agencies. The general public has
remained suspicious about the purpose and intent of nongovernmental organiza-
tions seeking to harness their time or money, which has made fundraising difcult.
A scandal surrounding the Project Hope campaign in the late 1990s did little to
instill public condence. In the run-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women
the ACWF began to refer to itself as a nongovernmental agency, even though ACWF
cadres at the time were not very clear about what a nongovernmental organization
was, nor whether they were themselves governmental or nongovernmental, not
least because many so-called nongovernmental organizations have often been sup-
ported by the state in terms of ofce space, equipment, and sometimes staff; some
have been initiated by central and local governments; and some have very close con-
nections with state ofcials at different levels (Chan 1993 Unger 2008,White, Howell
and Shang 1996). Still, to suggest that civil society does not exist in China because of
a lack of autonomy from the government fails to capture the dynamism and initia-
tive that has come from independent actors driven to organize around a need, inter-
est, or issue. Indeed, close cooperation with the state is a feature of many civil
societies around the world, particularly in relation to governmental contracting out

of service provision to the non-for-prot sector, the United Kingdom being a prime
example.
Finally, foreign investors and companies interested in staking a share in Chinas
domestic economy have also contributed to state controls over civil society, in part
through their agreement to partake in censoring. For example, both Google and
Yahoo signed agreements with the Chinese government to censor certain informa-
tion on their sites in China in order to secure access to the Chinese Internet market.
However, in early 2010 Google declared that it would no longer agree to censorship
controls over the ow of information and websites. Though this move has garnered
some domestic support, critics have condemned it as playing into the hands of the
Chinese government by yielding space to alternative Chinese internet providers,
who will willingly comply with government censorship demands.
3. Conclusion
The development of civil society in China has proceeded in an incremental, cyclical
fashion, with periods of contraction followed by periods of expansion. Compared
to the late 1970s when market reformers consolidated their power and embarked
upon a fundamental program of economic reform, the spaces for independent
organizing and the expression of ideas has widened considerably. Though the party
maintains a tight hold over any organizing or expression of ideas that it deems
threatening to social stability and the continuation of its rule, it is also increasingly
receptive to the idea of a depoliticized, third sector of welfare-oriented social
organizations, charities, and foundations. This incremental, cyclical pattern of
development points to the ongoing contestation and negotiation of boundaries
between state and civil society. In particular it highlights both the contradictory
impulses of the party towards civil society organizing, and the growing resistance of
civil society actors to restrictions on their freedoms of expression and association.
As China becomes more deeply integrated into the global economy and asser-
tive in global institutions, it will also become increasingly subject to international
scrutiny. Global economic, cultural, and social linkages as well as the Internet will
make it harder for the party to control the supply of information, analysis, and
opinion. Political leaders concerns about social stability and potential threats to
party rule will continue to drive a more restrictive approach to civil society organiz-
ing. At the same time, however, the need to address issues of social welfare and
social inequality and to nd new channels for the articulation of grievances calls for
a more pragmatic and inclusive approach to governing society. Finding an effective
way of addressing multiple, complex interests and channeling discontent will be
crucial for the maintenance by the party of stability and its continued rule in
China.
NOTES
1. On the ACFTU see Harper (1969) and Taylor et al. (2003) and on the ACWF see
Davin (1976) and Howell (1996).
2. The classic work on corporatism is by Philippe Schmitter (1974). The concept has
been applied to China by, for example, Chan (1993), Unger (1996, 2008), and White,
Howell, and Shang (1996).
3. For a detailed survey of collective protests in China see Cheung et al. 2006.
4. Between 2001 and 2005 the number of state-owned enterprises had fallen by 48
percent (Du 2005).
5. See China Internet Usage Stats and Population Report in Internet Usage and
Population Stats, www.internetworldstats.com (accessed on February 7, 2010).
6. On the increasing internationalization of China, see Zweig (2002).
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chapter 14
CIVIL SOCIETY IN INDIA
neera chandhoke
To suggest that concepts can neither be neutral nor transcultural, or that they bear
the imprint of the historical context in which they rst emerged, is to reiterate the
obvious. Of more interest is the way the concept is reshaped in different social and
political settings. This chapter explores the specic features of civil society in India
and their implications for the concept of civil society in general.
1. The Discovery of Civil Society

Much like Molieres Bourgeois Gentleman Jourdain, who recognized with some sur-
prise that he had been speaking prose all his life, scholars have documented, ana-
lyzed, and conceptualized associations, political movements, social engagements,
confrontations, and the politics of contestation and afrmation in India, without
realizing that they were theorizing a space that came to be known, particularly in
the 1980s, as civil society. The reasons why this concept was catapulted onto the
forefront of the political imagination are well known. First, civil society had waged
successful struggles against authoritarian state power in Central and Eastern Europe,
and elsewhere. Second, profound disenchantment with the developmental state, the
welfare state, and the socialist state motivated activists and scholars to look else-
where for a resolution to their political predicaments, which they found in the asso-
ciational life and social movements of civil society. Third, across the world the
English-speaking public was introduced to two signicant works in the form of
Antonio Gramscis Selections from the Prison Notebooks and Jrgen Habermass The
Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (translated into English in 1971 and
1989 respectively), both of which foregrounded the concept of civil society as the
public sphere. Finally, developments in the socialist world sharply illustrated the
problems that class projects and revolutionary transformations brought in their

wake. The lesson was well learned. The future belonged to loose coalitions of issue-
and identity-based movements, campaigns and civic associations, to projects that
sought to monitor rather than take over the state, and to self-limiting political agen-
das. This realisation signied the arrival of civil society.
The concept of civil society does not only abstract from, describe, or conceptualize
particular phenomena such as civic activism and collective action. It is normative inso-
far as it species that associational life in a metaphorical space between the household,
the market, and the state is valuable for a number of reasons. For one, associational life
neutralizes the individualism, atomism, and anomie that modernity brings in its wake.
Social associations make possible multiple projects and thus engender solidarity. These
projects range from developing popular consciousness about climate change to dis-
cussing and dissecting popular culture, to supporting needy children or organising
neighborhood activities. Or they might simply aim to enhance sociability and dissipate
alienation. Whatever the reason, associational life is seen as an intrinsic good.
Associational life is a good in another sense inasmuch as networks of associations
facilitate collective action. And participation in collective action enables the realization
of human agency insofar as citizens recognize and appreciate that they possess the right
to take part in decision making, and the competence to do so. In other words, collective
action brings to fruition the basic presumption of democracy: popular sovereignty. It
follows that unless people are willing to come together across economic, social, and
cultural divides, civil society cannot begin to engage with the state (Chandhoke 2009).
Conversely, though associational life is of value in its own right it cannot be de-linked
from the struggle for citizenship rights and state accountability (Gupta 1997).
Why is accountability important? One idea that lies at the heart of the civil
society argument is that even democratic states are likely to be imperfect. Democracy
is a project that has to be realized through collective action as well as sustained
engagement with the state. Citizen activism, public vigilance, informed public opin-
ion, a free media, and a multiplicity of social associations are necessary precondi-
tions for this task. But precisely at this point of the argument a number of questions
arise. Do all organizations in civil society bear the same sort of relationship with the
state? Do they all follow the democratic script in terms of their constitution, deci-
sion making, perspectives, commitments, and the tasks they set for themselves? Are
all organizations in civil society agents of democratization (Mahajan 1999, 1194)?
2. The Historical Trajectory of Civil

Society in India
Civil society organizations in India cannot be seen as a distinct corollary of bour-
geois society or what Hegel had termed Burgerliche Gesellschaft. These organiza-
tions were neither born out of experiences with an autonomous market, nor were
they a product of a juridical order, of property relations, of individuation, and of
civil society in india 173
the language of abstract rights. They emerged out of the twin processes of resistance
to colonialism and the development of a self-reective attitude to practices increas-
ingly found unacceptable in the light of modern systems of education and liberal
ideologies. From its very inception, civil society in India was a plural space, where at
least seven categories of organizations and associations pursued different but not
necessarily incompatible ends (Beher and Prakash 2004, 196197; Jayal 2007,
144145). First, in the nineteenth century social and religious reform movements
such as the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj worked for womens education and
widow remarriage; opposed the caste order, ritualism, and idolatry; and tried to
rationalize and restructure a hierarchical and discriminatory Hinduism. Second, in
the early decades of the twentieth century, Gandhian organizations engaged in what
was euphemistically termed the social uplift of the doubly disadvantaged castes
and the poor (e.g., the Harijan Sevak Sangh).
Third, a number of self-help organizations grew up around trade unions in
industrialized cities such as Bombay and Ahmedabad, for example, Swadeshi Mitra
Mandal and the Friends of Labourers Society. Fourth, movements against social
oppression like the Self-Respect Movement in Tamil Nadu sought to overturn the
hierarchical social order and establish the moral status of the so-called lower castes.
Fifth, professional English-speaking Indians formed a number of associations to peti-
tion the colonial government to extend English education and employment opportu-
nities to the educated middle classes (e.g., the Bombay Presidency Association). Sixth,
the Congress party that led the freedom movement established a number of afliated
groups such as women and youth organizations. And nally, social and cultural orga-
nizations committed to the project of establishing a Hindu nation, such as the Hindu
Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), formed the nucleus of
what might be called uncivil organizations in Indian civil society.
After independence, as the leaders of the freedom struggle took over the reins
of state power, organizations in civil society more or less retreated from engaging
with the state. Since the political leadership was widely seen as legitimate, civil soci-
ety organizations did not feel the need to politicize the population, make them con-
scious of their rights, or create a civic community in which the newly independent
citizens of India could engage with each other and with the state. The situation was
dramatically transformed barely two and a half decades after independence. The
decline of the Congress party heralded the demise of representative and responsive
politics. This naturally bred extreme discontent and anger. By the early 1970s the
socialist leader J. P. Narayan succeeded in tapping into this simmering discontent by
launching a major political movement against the authoritarianism of the central
government headed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
This movement provided one of the reasons for Indira Gandhis decision to
impose an internal emergency from June 1975 to January 1977. The emergency,
which suspended normal democratic politics and in particular constitutional pro-
tections of civil liberties, was marked by high levels of repression. Paradoxically
however, it also animated an entire range of social struggles outside the sphere of
party politics. If there is one lesson to be learned from India and elsewhere, it is that
authoritarian states trigger off the development and assertion of their own civil
societies. Arguably, civil society has won its most spectacular victories when con-
fronted by dictatorships, for nothing arouses disaffection and political rage more
than the denial of civil and political rights. Not unexpectedly, civil society organiza-
tions in India took root to confront violations of democratic rights and to ll in the
developmental decit of the state. Social activism at the grassroots prompted some
scholars to acclaim these new arenas of counteraction, countervailing tendencies
and countercultural movements as a non-party political alternative to the state
(Sheth 1983; Kothari 1988, 1989).
From the late 1970s, civil society mobilizations took place around the struggle
for caste and gender justice, the protection of civil liberties and the environment,
the struggle against large development projects that have displaced thousands of
tribal peoples and hill dwellers, and the rights to food, work, information, shelter,
primary education, and health (Shah 2004; Parajuli 2001; Katzenstein, Kothari, and
Mehta 2001). These movements have brought people together across social and class
divides and confronted state policies. By the year 2000, it was estimated that grass-
roots groups, social movements, nonparty political formations, and social action
groups numbered between 20,000 and 30,000 nationwide (Sheth 2004, 45).
In the 1990s, a striking shift from the vocabulary of social service and reform to
that of empowerment, rights, development, governance, and accountability her-
alded the advent of new forms of civil society organizing and activism. Political
democracy had been institutionalized throughout the country, yet large numbers of
people continued to exist on the margins of survival. Consequently, a large number
of civil society organizations became involved in development. Experiments in
alternative models of development had been initiated in the 1970s by educationists,
scientists, engineers, environmentalists, and social activists, including the Social
Work and Research Centre in Rajasthan and Kishore Bharti in Madhya Pradesh.
Increasingly, however, the eld came to be dominated by professionalized nongov-
ernmental organizations (NGOs), often sponsored and funded by donor agencies
in the West, and more than willing to partner with the state in the delivery of social
goods. This shift gained ofcial recognition in the Seventh Five-Year plan (1985
1990), with the government sanctioning considerable funds for service delivery. A
2004 study calculated that the total number of nonprot organizations in India is
now more than 1.2 million and that 20 million people work for these organizations
either in a voluntary capacity or for a salary (PRIA 2003, 5,11).
3. The Professionalization
of Civil Society in India
In Democracy in America, De Tocqueville had suggested that in democratic coun-
tries the science of association is the mother science, the progress of all others
depends on the progress of that one (2000, 492). For highly individualistic modern
societies this observation was more than prescient. Social associations are of value
because they make collective life possible, encourage citizens to participate in criti-
cal political and public discourse, and enable collective action to engage with the
state. In the process, the basic presupposition of democracyparticipationis
realized through citizen activism and various modes of civic engagement and
protest.
Increasingly however, civil societies across the world have come to be domi-
nated by highly professional NGOs, whose position in civil society has been ques-
tioned since they are neither social movements nor citizens groups. The rise of
NGOs has brought a qualitatively different way of doing things: campaigns rather
than social movements, lobbying government ofcials rather than politicizing the
population, working through networks rather than civic activism, and a high degree
of reliance on the media and the judiciary rather than on direct action. This has
been illustrated by four key campaigns in India that have focused on the rights to
food, employment, information, and education. Their efforts have borne notable
results in the form of specic policies and the grant of social rights, but these cam-
paigns have been successful only when the Supreme Court has intervened
(Chandhoke 2007). The problem is that whereas the court has adopted a proactive
stance on social rights, it has dismissed the demands of movements that have
demanded a more radical restructuring of power relations in the country. For
example, in the 1980s the Narmada Bachao Andolan movement had highlighted the
plight of thousands of people who had been displaced by the building of the Sardar
Sarovar dam on the Narmada River in Western India. The movement had approached
the Supreme Court and requested that work on the dam be stopped. However, in
October 2000, the court, by a majority of one, permitted the raising of the height of
the dam to 90 meters. The ruling not only resulted in the displacement of thousands
more families, but amounted to a serious setback to critiques of large development
projects as environmentally unsound and socially hazardous. This is not to suggest
that judicial activism is unimportant, but too much reliance on judicial interven-
tions can tame the agenda of civil society and force it to conform to what is politi-
cally permissible.
The Indian NGO sector is rarely in the business of acting, as one insider puts it,
as a catalyst for social, economic, and political changes favouring the poor, margin-
alized, and disadvantaged (Beher and Prakash 2004, 199). It is difcult to expect the
sector to mount a critique of the state when NGOs are heavily funded by it, and
despite the tremendous contribution of the NGO sector to development, a concen-
tration on specic issues leaves the big picture untouchedthe huge inequalities in
access to resources for example. Instead, NGOs aim to ensure that the state delivers
what it has promised to deliver in the constitution, that policy is implemented effec-
tively, that local authorities are made accountable, that government is transparent,
that midday meals are provided to children in primary schools, that the poor get
jobs for at least one hundred days a year, and that school enrolment increases. As a
result, the quality of life for ordinary Indians may improve somewhat, but in the
process participation and popular sovereignty might fall by the wayside.
These anxieties are not irresolvable, for no one group or set of strategies can
tackle the sheer scale of problems that exist in India such as poverty, illiteracy, and
health. The only alternative is to build networks between social movements, citi-
zen groups, and professionalized NGOs and thereby pool their strategies and
methods. This is politically sagacious for another reason. If social movements
mobilize people and articulate their needs, the NGO sector can provide the exper-
tise, publicity, and program strategies to meet them. Professional organizations
might never engage in politicizing the population, but when they partner with
social movements and other citizens groups, they do come into contact with citi-
zens, albeit indirectly.
In addition, in a globalized world it is no longer possible to insulate political
struggles within a country from developments elsewhere. Globalization implies
that peoples lives are affected by decisions taken in the closed discussion rooms
of the World Trade Organization and other distant institutions. Moreover, the
intractable problems that confront humanity, like climate change, can only be
negotiated through an amalgamation of ideas, energies, and resolutions. In recent
years a space has been created for the emergence of global coalitions that speak
for the poor and the oppressed across the world. What is important is that these
coalitions have succeeded in putting issues on the domestic political agenda that
have been neglected by national governments. For example, in the 1980s, global
networks such as WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and
Organizing) began to advocate for the right of unorganized workers to social pro-
tection. In India this sector constitutes almost 94 percent of the labor market.
This strategy has been remarkably successful, for in December 2008 the govern-
ment of India (which has sidestepped the problems that beset this section of the
work force for so long) nally passed the Unorganised Sector Workers Social
Security Bill. The bill provides social security and job protection to at least 375
million workers in the unorganized sector.
The experience of Indias civil society has modied classical theories in at least
three ways. First, if they wish their particular cause to achieve success, civil society
organizations have to link up with like-minded groups across borders in loosely
structured coalitions. Second, the professionalization of civil society organizations
is likely to continue. Third, mobilization in civil society will most probably take the
route of campaigns that aim to deepen democracy rather than to politicize con-
stituencies or realize popular sovereignty through citizen engagement. Arguably
these campaigns will achieve success only if the judiciary and the media are on their
side. Deepening democracy might be achieved at the expense of realizing political
rights, as well as representation and accountability. But perhaps this is the natural
outcome of the professionalization of civil society, not only in India but elsewhere,
as countertrendssuch as workers resistanceare no longer able to stand up for
themselves.
4. Involuntary Organizations
The notion of social association presumes a high degree of voluntarinessthat is,
the ability of individuals to form, join, and exit associations out of their own free
will. It is precisely here that one can locate the problem of civil society in countries
like India, which are neither completely individuated nor wholly communitarian.
Here people experience life as individuals in certain sorts of profession, relation-
ships, vocations, and social commitments. But when they lay claim on the state for
benets such as afrmative action policies, people tend to act as members of a caste
or religious group. That is, whereas membership in some associations is based on
the principle of voluntary entry and exit, in other associations it is involuntary. The
question then is whether involuntary groups are part of civil society or not?
Some scholars would say no. In order for an association to qualify as a civil
society organization, its membership must be based on the principle of nondis-
crimination, and all organizations must be open and secular. Therefore, the greatest
threat to civil society comes from the intrusion of collective identities (Beteille 1999,
2589). I think two issues are at stake here. The rst is that involuntary associations
are necessarily exclusionary, and the second is that they are likely to put forth claims
that are group specic. If, for example, group X demands afrmative action policies
for its members alone, then not only are the many Ys excluded, but their demands
can only be satised at the latters expense. This breeds anxiety, because exclusions
and partisan claims inhibit the capacity of civil society to launch collective action
for the general good.
Susanne Rudolph (2000, 1767) points out that most associations are intentional,
insofar as ascribed ethnic identities are the product of intention and cultural con-
struction as much as birth. Therefore, these associations cannot be excluded from
civil society. It is true that associational life is constitutive of these identities, but this
does not cancel out the fact that both the membership and the agenda of these
groups are restricted. The problem that such groups pose for the idea that civil soci-
ety consists only of voluntary associations is, however, not intractable. Consider, for
example, that in a plural society no one agenda can possibly be independent of all
others. At some point associations of, say, the so-called lower castes will have to
intersect with organizations of informal labor, simply because these two identities
dovetail into one another. Women who work in the informal sector have to make
common cause with women in other social locations, because they share certain
problems in common, such as sexual harassment or domestic violence. And all these
groups have to link up at some time with environmental groups because climate
change affects everyones lives. The forging of networks in civil society is of tremen-
dous signicance for strategic reasons, as well as for reasons of creating identities
that overlap. But more importantly, in the process of creating networks and common
agendas, partisan projects are modied and brought into line with other agendas
that strive for democratization of the general social and economic order.
More important than the internal constitution of groups, therefore, is the pro-
cess by which these groups and their platforms articulate with and modify each
other in the spaces of civil society. From such intricate processes a critical public
discourse is forged, and exclusive interests mediated. In other words, the processes
by which civil society brings together different interest groups, and the manner in
which groups are persuaded to collapse discrete individual interests into a critical
public discourse, is as signicant as the initial appearance of exclusive demands.
This does not imply that organizations that represent discrete interests are com-
pelled to water down their own demands when they enter into transactions with
other civil society groups. Rather, it suggests that these demands acquire added
political weight when other groups recognize that these are an indispensable com-
ponent of democratic agendas (Oomen 2004, 128143). The processes of bridging
social capital are as politically signicant as those of bonding social capital. If the
former category facilitates the emergence of democratic coalitions, the latter lends
political weight to the demand itself.
5. Uncivil Organizations
Despite the condence that discrete individual agendas can and will be mediated by
other platforms in plural civil societies, there is one set of organizations that defy
this process. These are closed organizations that single-mindedly pursue a particu-
lar interest at the expense of others. Take the cadre-based organization of the reli-
gious right in India, the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) or the National
Self-Service Alliance. The professed objective of the RSS is not only the creation of
a self-condent Hindu identity, but also the construction of a Hindu nation. As the
RSS and other afliates of the religious right have relentlessly pursued this objective
since the early decades of the twentieth century, minorities have been put at risk.
The problem is that such organizations not only resist mediations of their own
commitments, they also prevent the coming together of other associations. Taking
his cue from Robert Putnams thesis of social capital, Ashutosh Varshney (2002,
468) suggests that prior and sustained contact between members of different com-
munities moderates tensions and preempts violence when such tensions arise due
to exogenous shocks. Conversely, communal violence has occurred in precisely
those cities in which these networks were either not present or had broken down.
However, Varshney seems to underplay the contribution of the religious right to the
breakdown of intercommunal relations, and to the build up of a climate of hatred,
suspicion, and aggression. Research in one of the cities that has been marked by
repeated communal riots, Ahmedabad, shows that the RSS and its afliate organiza-
tions have since the 1960s systematically worked to instil in the majority community
a profound hatred for the Muslim minority. This systemic mobilization shattered
an already fragile associational life between communities. When in 2002 cadres of
the Hindu right, backed by mobs, carried out a near-pogrom of the Muslim minor-
ity in the city, the civil society that was expected to keep watch on the excesses of
power kept quiet (Oommen 2008, 7475; Chandhoke 2009).
One cannot claim that the RSS is not a civil society association, because it rep-
resents itself as a cultural and a social service organization. It has established a net-
work of educational institutions and social service organizations, and in moments
of crisis such as natural disasters, RSS cadres are among the rst volunteers to begin
work in the affected area to rescue and rehabilitate those affected. For these reasons
the organization has built up a high degree of trust among the population. From
this and related examples, it is clear that civil society organizations need not be
democratic nor subscribe to the same core values. Consequently, the only way in
which uncivil organizations and their undemocratic agendas can be neutralized is
through contestation in civil society itself. This means that democratic organiza-
tions in civil society have to be Janus-faced, with one face turned towards the state,
and the other turned inwards. In the nal instance, as Gramsci had theorized, civil
society is a site of contestation.
6. The Relevance of Civil Society

Finally, is civil society relevant for countries like India that are marked by social
exclusion, inequality, and poverty? In Europe, civil society emerged in tandem with
the consolidation of bourgeois society. The unit of this society is the rights bearing
individual who is protected by the rule of law. The problem is that in India, large
numbers of citizens are relegated to the margins of society, and do not possess any
kind of status. Nor are they protected by the law. Partha Chatterjee has therefore
argued that in India civil society is restricted to a fairly small section of citizens,
notably the middle classes who speak the language of rights (2001, 172). The poor,
who negotiate the travails of everyday existence through the adoption of illegal
means and clear violations of the law, occupy the space of political society instead.
Though Chatterjee does not explicitly reject civil society, he sees it as irrelevant for
a vast majority of Indians. And though he does not valorize political society, he
seems to indicate that this space and its mediations are more authentic than those
of civil society.
One can accept that the concept of civil society does not admit or sanction all
sorts of practices, and that excluded practices need to be studied and conceptual-
ized as well. But there are at least two difculties that can be identied in Chatterjees
distinction between civil and political society. First, do practices in political soci-
ety, such as tapping water and electricity connections illegally, fall into the category
of politics or proto-politics? As Hobsbawm puts it in his study of social banditry,
certain forms of politics are strictly speaking proto-politicsundetermined, con-

servative, and ambiguous (1959, 2). Proto-politics or semipolitics refer to those
practices that seek concessions for the individual or the group. But if the objective
of politics is to shape and reshape the political context in which we live, then we
need a politics that has a broader vision than merely negotiating the problems of
everyday life illegally. Such a politics demands that people be brought into a rela-
tionship with one another, that collective action be forged, that the universal be
mediated by the particular, and that citizens participate in the constitution of a
public and critical discourse. State concessions to proto-political activities neither
change formal institutions nor build solidarity. In fact, piecemeal practices might
even strengthen the power of the state. Though such forms of politics can exist in
modern civil societies as well, ultimately democratic agents have to take on the
responsibility of making the transition from short-term practices to long-term
engagement with real modes of power.
Secondly, the suggestion that subaltern groups are untouched by bourgeois ide-
ology seems to overlook the fact that practices transcend the boundaries of discrete
spheres. In their struggles for land rights in squatter settlements, for example, the
poor can be motivated by bourgeois notions of entitlements and rights to property.
Furthermore, illegal transactions are not only a feature of noncivil society spaces,
since formal civil societies also engage in these transactions (Bardhan 2009; Coelho
and Venkat 2009). But more importantly, there is hardly any historical setting in
which a pure civil society has been lifted from a textbook and transplanted into
another specic context. The concept of civil society signies a space and a set of
values, but this space and set of values are mediated and modied by historical con-
texts as the foregoing discussion has shown. In Indias civil society, modern discourses
of rights coexist with practices that reinscribe collective identities, individual self-
consciousness is articulated with subordination to the dictates of the leader of the
caste or religious group, and legal practices intersect with other sorts of practices that
breach the law. In other words, the moment we think of civil society as a plural and
fragmented sphere, the distinction between political and civil society begins to blur.
7. Conclusion
This discussion of an actually existing civil society carries at least three implications
for the concept in general. First, since states are basically condensates of power, even
states that lay claims to democracy are likely to be imperfectly democratic.
Democracy is a project that has to be realized through citizen activism in the space
of civil society. Second, civil society is plural in nature and in composition. Here one
nds chambers of commerce alongside workers organizations, patriarchal groups
alongside groups that ght for women, caste and racist groups alongside demo-
cratic movements ghting for dignity. Civil society possesses no single essence, no
one set of practices that dovetail with each other. Third, one cannot assume that all
organizations in civil society will always be democratic. Undemocratic organiza-
tions will, therefore, have to be engaged, countered, and even neutralized by groups
committed to democracy. In the nal instance civil society is a site of struggle
between different sorts of groups and commitments (Chandhoke 2001). The exam-
ple of civil society in India makes this crystal clear.
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Economic and Political Weekly 5 (December): 316.
Beher, A., and A. Prakash. 2004. India: Expanding and Contracting Democratic Space, in
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Contracting Democratic Space. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Beteille A. 1999. Citizenship, State and Civil Society. Economic and Political Weekly
September 410: 258891.
Chandhoke, N. 2001. The Civil and the Political in Civil Society. Democratization vol.
8/2 (Summer): 124.
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99108.
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Associationism in Chennai. Economic and Political Weekly, June 27, 358367.
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(eds.) The State of Indias Democracy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
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chapter 15
CIVIL SOCIETY IN
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
ebenezer obadare
In recent times, scholarly enthusiasm about the idea of civil society appears to have
waned somewhat, supplanted by something approximating a state of academic
fatigue. Whereas in the early 1980s civil society enjoyed an intellectual renaissance
that saw its widespread use by academics and activists alike, many scholars now
openly express doubts about its usefulness as a concept, and some are already cele-
brating its demise (Shefner 2009; Wiarda 2003). In most of sub-Saharan Africa, old
anxieties about the capacity of civil society to expound African socialities have also
resurfaced. Should new life be breathed into this idea, and if so how? In reecting
on this question, this chapter provides a critical survey of the contemporary history
of civil society in sub-Saharan Africa and concludes that, while the early promise of
civil society may have been exaggerated there is equal danger in inating current
levels of disillusionment with a set of ideas that retain real analytic and practical
utility.
1. Days of Enchantment
Civil society crept into academic discourse in sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1980s
and was guaranteed a warm reception. The entire African continent was on the cusp
of profound change. Three decades into the postcolonial era, political elites were
having a turbulent time justifying their stay in power. The heady days of the imme-
diate post-independence period seemed like another age, as countries faced up to
prostrate economies, a listless youth demographic, and growing demands for politi-
cal liberalization. This was the moment when civil society, fresh from its revolution-
ary feats in Eastern Europe, found its way into the vocabulary of opposition groups
in Africa.
For those of a historical predilection, there was something familiar in all
this. Specific moments in the evolution of the subcontinent have always pro-
duced or been animated by ideas. Accordingly, the state, the bourgeoisie, and
voluntary associations have each, in their rise and fall, symbolized important
milestones in the unending quest for the drivers of African development. Civil
society seemed to be the latest incarnation of this chain of ideas, as well as its
apotheosis. For members of the opposition, which in most parts of Africa meant
anyone who, as Chabal (1991) might have argued was not part of the state, civil
society was an ideational godsenda banner under which various groups, hith-
erto sundered by state manipulation, could rally. Civil society became not only
a vehicle for ideological clarity and coherence, but also a space of sociability
outside the reach of a traditionally overbearing state. From the expansive cloth
of civil society, other forces fashioned designs to suit their own projects and
objectives, deepening the frustration of purists who urged a more nuanced
approach to its possibilities.
Two key points emerge from this analysis. The rst is that the context in which
these ideas were introduced into African academic and political discourse rein-
forced a tendency to understand civil society almost exclusively in relation to
democratization and the state, though there is nothing culturally exceptional about
this frame. As White (1994) has pointed out, civil society has always been an ana-
lytical hat stand on which different social forces have hung their agendas. And
according to Paley, Groups siphon vocabulary from internationally circulating dis-
courses and enact distinctive meanings and practices (2008, 7).
Second, a tendency for creative adaptation is part of the history of civil society
thinking, since civil society has never enjoyed a single, uncontested meaning (Keane
1998). On the contrary, it has always been a reactive idea having arisen and some-
times appealed quite widely in exceptional situations or moments of crisis, as a way
of exorcising a certain type of threat (Nairn 1997, 75). In the sub-Saharan Africa of
the early and mid-1980s, that threat was a centralized state with overweening pow-
ers of coercion, and a determination to use them to force through an unpopular
neoliberal economic agenda of structural adjustment.
To the extent that it provided a battle cry against the state, civil society could be
said to have met the needs of the moment, but this was not without its own prob-
lems as over time, the struggle against the state encouraged a tendency to dene
civil society in solely adversarial terms, thus stripping the idea of its all-important
historical density (Honneth 1993, 19). By providing nancial and material support
to organizations and movements allied with this tendency, development agencies
and international institutions played a crucial role in legitimizing a particular vision
of civil society as a delegitimizing force, comprising a phalanx of largely urban-
based associations.
civil society in sub-saharan africa 185
2. A History of Tensions
To what enduring African problems should the language of civil society be addressed?
Which particular sociocultural agents should be privileged in this conversation, and
why? And where should civil society scholarship in Africa direct its gazeto the
past, where urgent work of cultural excavation is required, or to the present, where
the task of economic and political reconstruction is no less important?
In raising these questions, my intent is to emphasize one perspective that is usu-
ally overlooked: that debates over the meaning and possibilities of civil society are
more often than not a continuation of academic politics by other means. The inten-
tion here is not to demonize these politics, but to point to the existence of real epis-
temological differences among African/ist scholars which predate the arrival of the
civil society debate. These differences have tended to reproduce and map onto the
contours of preexisting rivalries. When, for example, Mahmood Mamdani ques-
tions to what extent we can talk of the existence of civil society in contemporary
African countries? What is the expression of its coming into being? And what is the
signicance of this process, particularly from the point of view of democratic strug-
gle? (1995, 604), it is clear that he is summating a genealogy of radical scholarship
that tends to be on its guard against a one-eyed vision of social and political pro-
cesses (1995, 3) in Africa, an attitude which evacuates ideas of their moral con-
tents and their substratum of implicating ethics (Ekeh 1983, 17).
On one side of this debate are scholars who urge a critical distance from civil
society because of the dangers they perceive in misapplying Western political con-
structs to African circumstances, especially when those constructs involve such
history-soaked concepts as civil society (Ekeh 1992, 188). To varying degrees, this
skepticism permeates the work of the Comaroffs (1999), Mamdani (1996),
Mustapha (1998), Callaghy (1994), and Orvis (2001). In addition to its cultural
and historical specicity, these scholars have genuine worries about the utility of
civil society when confronted by sub-Saharan Africas notoriously unstable social
and political processes. In a memorable phrase, Callaghy equated the search for
civil society in Africa with the long Africanist irtation with class analysis,
[where] you often nd what you go looking for if you try hard enough. In the
case of civil society, I would argue that there is even less reality out there than with
classes (Callaghy 1994, 250).
For the skeptics, uneasiness with civil societys ontological status (Comaroff
and Comaroff 1999) sets the tone for other grounds for caution. For example,
African associational life is dominated by ascriptive (as opposed to voluntary)
groups, and is thus perceived to be incongruous with the ideal of civil society in
Western theory. For Ekeh (1992, 123) in particular, the problem lies not so much
with ascriptive groupings in themselves, though it would help considerably if the
individual had some leeway from the cultural obligations imposed by membership
of associations they are born into. Rather, the real problem is that whereas civil
society requires that the worth of the unique individual be recognized beyond his
or her ethnic group . . . the ideology of kinship imposes restrictions on the moral
worth of individuals, with those from outside its domain being less morally valued
than the kinsfolk. . . . The universalism of civil society helps to offer common moral
empathy, whereas kinship is restrictive in its meaning of freedom. If these prob-
lems are legitimate, and African associational life is indeed dominated by ascriptive
groupings, does it not follow that civil society is the prerogative of European-type
industrialized societies? ( Jorgensen 1996, 40).
While not necessarily rejecting the assumption that ascriptive associations
tend to impose cultural limits on individual agency, scholars on the other side of
the civil society debate insist that that radical possibilities continue to exist within
these associations. In addition, a variety of other institutions exist in Africa for
protecting collective interests beyond ethnic and kinship associations (Bratton
1989, 411). The habits of association, to borrow Alexis de Tocquevilles famous
phrase, can be found in most societies, activated by the need to organize to pro-
tect their families, develop their agriculture or crafts, form some health service or
educational initiative, arrange for their burials and so on ( Jorgensen 1996, 40).
Therefore, civil society is indispensable to conceptualize politics in Africa
(Chabal 1991, 93). Indeed, for Harbeson (1994, 27), the language of civil society is
best suited for this purpose because civil society by denition roots political val-
ues in culturally specic value systems and is thus singularly valuable in overcom-
ing and counteracting ethnocentrism.
Speaking of patrimonialism, Jean-Francois Medard (1996, 195) once observed
that the generality of the concept can be heuristically confronted to the singularity
of historical situations. This seems to sum up the attitude of its supporters to the
language of civil society in Africa, whereby a keen awareness of its limitations is bal-
anced by an unquenchable faith in its adaptability to the singularity of historical
situations. What, therefore, has civil society brought to the table in the contexts of
sub-Saharan Africa, and how has its intervention shaped the changing balance of
forces between state and society?
3. Opposition, Influence, and Change

The 1980s were a critical period in the history of sub-Saharan Africa. Across the
continent, the triumphalism that had greeted the transition from colonial over-
lordship to self-rule in the late 1950s and the 1960s had disappeared, to be replaced
by a palpable disillusionment with postcolonial elites who, it was generally believed,
had sacriced the promise of the post-independence era on the altar of their own
greed and incompetence. This sense of anomie was symbolized by the 198485
Ethiopia famine which resulted in the loss of thousands of lives, accompanied by
the intervention of large numbers of Western NGOs and other development
agencies.
Disappointment in Africa with the postcolonial elite was reinforced by the

growth of a global ideology that focused on the perceived failings of the state as the
supreme form of human solidarity. In the West there was considerable anxiety over
what was widely seen as the welfare states inexorable loss of inuence and capacity,
too remote to manage the problems of daily life and too constrained to confront
the global problems that affect us (Guehenno 1995, 1213). Some scholars (such as
Bayart 2007) have disputed this assessment of the nation-states performance, argu-
ing that what many see as its failings are in fact proof of the states tenacity and tri-
umph, but the rise of anti-state ideology did create the discursive space required for
the language of civil society to take hold. As John and Jean Comaroff put it, at a
time when distrust of sovereign authority across the political spectrum borders on
paranoia, the Idea [of civil society] would have to be invented if it did not already
exist. In Africa, Asia, Europe. Everywhere (1999, 18).
In her analysis of civil society in Eastern Europe, Chandhoke (2001, 2) identies
three different historical meanings of these ideas: the wish to limit formerly
untrammeled power of the state by the institutionalization of political, but more
importantly, civil rights and the rule of law; to carve out a domain that would
function independently of state regulation; and to assert that the active engage-
ment of ordinary men and women in groups, neighbourhoods, professional and
social associations, and voluntary agencies, was a good thing in itself. All these
meanings resonated powerfully in sub-Saharan Africa, where the maladroitness of
the elite and the dysfunctionality of the state necessitated new patterns of social and
political relations between governance and the governed.
While this resonance was dictated by obvious material circumstances, the ideal-
ization of civil society as the good society and as the prime vehicle for its accom-
plishment was championed by international nancial institutions like the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), often acting at the behest of
Western countries, and supplemented by local NGOs (Edwards 2009). The role of
NGOs in civil society in sub-Saharan Africa is already the subject of an extensive and
often contentious literature which explains their role as institutions of transnational
governmentality (Lewis 2002, 9).1 In this role, NGOs often perform as analogues of
similar institutions in Western countries, promoting a rhetoric that validates their
existence and lling in for the state even as their expansion effectuates a diminution
in the states capacity to meet social needs. This is not always true. A tunnel-vision
approach to the politics and practices of NGOs can occlude clear thinking about the
social ecology in which they grow and ourish, the important role that NGOs have
played in the delegitimizing of ossied political authorities, the bringing of African
issues to wider international discourses, and their collaboration with aspects of
political society that, in some notable cases, has led to the dislodgment of dictatorial
regimes in Benin and Nigeria, to name but two examples. These experiences raise the
crucial question: what possibilities do ideas about civil society in Africa create?
For Livesey (2009, 219), central to the recent popularity of civil society is its
capaciousness and capacity to comprise complexity and plurality. For Zakaria,
part of the beauty of civil society lies in its ability to provide the basis for a new
liberal cosmopolitanism that guarantees the liberty of the individual against the
populist temptations that are seen haunting all forms of democracy (Zakaria
2003, cited in Livesey 2009, 5). And, most crucially, for the Eastern European
resistance in the 1980s, the attraction of civil society resided in its perceived
capacity to tie together all the spheres of social action not belonging to state
institutions, insofar as these spheres could serve as a basis for the construction of
a democratic opposition. In fact, it was precisely the vagueness of this concept
which gave it a distinct strategical advantage (Honneth 1993, 19; emphasis
added).
For the sub-Saharan African resistance which emerged in the early 1980s, civil
societys utility in drawing up a programme for radical democratization (Honneth
1993, 19) was its most attractive feature. It was also expedient to belong to, or orga-
nize on the basis of, civil society, given that at this time there was no better guaran-
tee of reliable access to foreign donors committed to empowering or strengthening
civil society. These factors explain the frequency with which the language of civil
society was employed in otherwise legitimate mobilizations across the continent by
womens associations, labor movements, trade unions, student groups, civil liberties
and human rights organizations, pro-democracy associations and citizen groupsin
short, any group that opposed the status quo. To belong to civil society was to stake
a certain claim to authenticity and morality, usually juxtaposed against the deca-
dence of the state and its agents.
To the extent that these ideas about civil society as the good society succeeded,
it was due in large part to the reluctance of its champions to admit to the essential
moral and intellectual complexities involved. But as earlier in Eastern Europe, the
romanticization of civil society by the African resistance and the widespread ten-
dency to emphasize its presumed democratic properties were themselves a function
of the demands of the historical moment. For many, it was civil societys utility, not
its ambiguity, that really mattered.
4. The Dawn of Realism

With initial exuberance on the wane, a greater sense of realism has emerged about
what actually existing civil societies (Mamdani 1995) are capable of accomplishing
in Africa. Three decades on, few expect civil society to be a magic wand for demo-
cratic stability or economic development in Africa, and in some quarters, civil soci-
ety is blamed for the continents failure to consummate the promise of the early
post-independence period. What explains this sudden disillusionment? Why has
civil society in Africa failed to live up to the grandiose claims of its pioneer
proponents?
There is no shortage of answers to these questions. They range from a failure to

appreciate the difculties posed by civil societys roots in alien cultural soil (Guyer
1994), to the rush to equate a high-prole NGO sector with a resurgent civil society
(Lewis 2004), to the willful inattentiveness of some to its moral ambiguity and the
tensions and contradictions that are always present (Boussard 2002; Monga 1996),
to an essentialism that invests civil society with democratic values when the evi-
dence suggests that it has no determining properties at all, whether democratic or
undemocratic (Bangura and Gibbon 1992, 21).
Other scholars have focused on the key assumptions that underpin state-civil
society analyses in Africa, particularly those that dene the political struggles of the
post-independence era as between an inefcient, authoritarian, rent-seeking, coer-
cive, neopatrimonial, and morally bankrupt state and a peaceful, transparent, dem-
ocratic, and accountable civil society. Mustapha (1996) rejects this rigid bifurcation
on the grounds that it reduces state processes to rent-seeking, thereby ignoring the
role of the state as the provider of services and facilities to underprivileged groups
in society, within the context of the post-colonial nationalist project and the politi-
cal coalitions built up around it (1996, 226). Furthermore, he bemoans the refusal
of civil society advocates to acknowledge that power and exploitation is not limited
to the state sector alone, for these are also to be found in the informal sector, and
that traditional values, purported to form the foundation of democratic associa-
tional life, are far from unambiguous (1996, 227).
Perhaps the most damning indictment of civil society in Africa is that it has
become an impediment to the emergence of a truly democratic political culture.
Instead of providing viable alternatives, the organizational culture of civil society
bears an uncanny resemblance to the verticality and personalism that characterize
existing political culture at large. According to Boussard, Besides being controlled
by strong charismatic leaders, some civil society organisations have problems
with lack of accountability, transparency, rotating leadership and representation
(2002, 163).
In sub-Saharan Africa, urban-based associations, and NGOs in particular, have
become the bte noire of those who argue from this position. Their critique ranges
from the reliance of most NGOs on foreign aid, which weakens their roots in domes-
tic civil society constituencies and formations, to their alleged appropriation of the
idea of civil society as a whole, thereby excluding rural and community-based asso-
ciations which may have stronger and more organic linkages to the majority of the
African population who live in villages and depend on the land for their subsis-
tence. Sufce it to say that not all NGOs are alike in these respects, and their orga-
nizational cultures are certainly more diverse than the critics admit. But the criticism
is valid and is itself a reection of the long shadow that professionalized, urban-
based NGOs have cast on the public sphere and the culture of social movements
across sub-Saharan Africa, especially over the last twenty years. Indeed, some of the
criticism seems unimpeachable. It is difcult to argue, for example, against
Mamdanis contention that contemporary NGOs and civil society based movements
in sub-Saharan Africa are undermined by their lack of a peasant base, and conse-
quently their limited liberal agenda (Mamdani 1993, 47); or that NGOs reliance on
external funding has not inuenced the issues and agendas that they have taken
up.
5. Conclusion: Beyond the Backlash
In the developing countries that I know best, whether the issue is agrarian reform,
community development, basic human needs, family planning, sustainable
development, and now civil society, the same people always seem to form the
local commissions and agencies that show the aid donors how and where to
spend their monies. It is not merely love of public policy issues that motivates
these persons; having been in quite a number of their homes, I can report that, as
in political Washington, they have learned to do well by doing good; that is, by
proting personally and/or publicly by jumping quickly on the bandwagon of
every new U.S. initiative that comes down the pike (Wiarda 2003, 144).
Wiardas cynicism has also infected perceptions of civil society in sub-Saharan

Africa.2 While in the early 1980s, civil society was hailed by some as the apotheosis
of the African quest for modernity, the mood in academic circles has become decid-
edly more somber. If the critics are to be believed, civil society has run its course,
and it is time that the illusions of civil society were jettisoned (Shefner 2009). For
Shefner, the concept of civil society has not merely run its course: Civil society
analysis interferes with our understanding of what kinds of conicts exist, who the
constituents of varied groups embroiled in conicts are, and the differential results
of varied strategies and struggles (Shefner 2009, 207). In short, civil society has
become a barrier to understanding the social and political realities and possibilities
of African development.
A number of responses need to be made to criticisms such as these. First, when
scholars criticize civil society, it is often difcult to establish whether the critique
applies to civil society as a concept or as a reality. Second, because African civil soci-
eties are shaped in many different ways and have specic strengths and weaknesses,
analytic generalization is always difcult. Third, when idealists emphasize the radi-
cal possibilities of civil society, problems arise not because of these ideas themselves
but because scholars fail to acknowledge the dark side of civil society and its
implications (Colas 1997, Obadare 2004). And fourth, radical and conservative cri-
tiques of civil society are necessarily dissonant, each informed by entirely different
expectations of what the concept means and the social and political projects that
civil society is supposed to sustain.
This fourth observation is arguably the most important. Most criticism of
civil society in sub-Saharan Africa has focused on the alleged weaknesses of
contemporary civil society associations, especially urban-based NGOs. Some of this

criticism is justied, but it begs the question of whether such criticism itself rests on
a monistic view of the very area of life that is supposed to be the home of plurality
(Parekh 2004, 27). Put differently, the main problem with academic critiques of
African civil societies is that they only make sense within a paradigm in which civil
society is reduced to the realm of certain kinds of voluntary association.
By contrast, when civil society is viewed as an ecosystem which includes a
wide variety of types of association, engagements in the public sphere, and relation-
ships between civil and political action, it is clear that these ecologies have played an
important role in the third wave of democratization in sub-Saharan Africa, even
when certain types of association display behavior that is non-egalitarian and sus-
ceptible to volatile individual impulses (Edwards 2009; Parekh 2004, 29). Research
has shown that different degrees of direct and indirect compulsion are to be found
within voluntary associations and that many of their leaders are themselves closely
connected to the state, and many of the associations they lead exhibit different
degrees of undemocratic practice (Bangura and Gibbon 1992; Abrahamsen 1996;
Mustapha 1998, 228). Hence, a healthy associational ecosystem does not automati-
cally translate into a healthy civil society, but a focus on associations alone (even
including ascriptive groups) imposes arbitrary limits on the plurality and spacious-
ness that the language of civil society encodes, and therefore on the utility of this
concept in both theory and practice. The challenge before the next wave of civil
society discourse in sub-Saharan Africa is to escape from the prison imposed by
particular kinds of association in order to capture what Mbembe (2006) has
described as the power of the street across the continent. This will involve an
analysis of both old and new forms of politics in which participants draw on a range
of cultural resources that do not necessarily lend themselves to the strictures of
formal associations. Crucially, this will be in keeping with both the eclecticism that
characterizes ideas about civil society and with subversive interpretations of these
ideas which emphasize their capacity to inspire subaltern alternatives and actions
(Obadare 2009; Chan 2002).
Thus, if civil society is to gain more analytic traction in sub-Saharan Africa, its
discourse must be liberated from orthodox connes (Comaroff and Comaroff
1999, 33) in order to revalorize the questions that lie at the heart of radical scholar-
ship about the African condition. How did Africa get into its current situation?
What are the sociocultural determinants of the African crisis? How, if at all, can civil
society illuminate an understanding of these questions, and how can it inspire new
social movements and new forms of politics? Civil society cannot and should not be
expected to eliminate the wide differences that exist between schools of thought
and intellectual traditions. Instead, what it offers is a language that is rich enough to
assist in the task of historical accounting, while at the same time being sufciently
exible to accommodate the plethora of visions and approaches that scholars will
continue to bring to their analyses of the African conditionpast, present, and
future.
NOTES
1. See Jorgensen 1996; Ndegwa 1996; Edwards and Fowler 2002; Kelsall and Igoe 2005;
and Ndegwa 1996.
2. Chris Hann (2004) makes similar observations about what he refers to as the
mystery of civil society in post-socialist Eurasia, suggesting that it has no real existence
in the absence of international aid funds and the strategic managerialism of its
entrepreneurs.
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part iv
THE NORMS OF CIVIL

SOCIETY
chapter 16
CIVIL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL

CAPITAL
michael woolcock
Over the last twenty-ve years, the concepts of civil society and social capital
have experienced a remarkable rise to prominence across many disciplines and
sectors. Though they refer to broadly similar entities, it is generally agreed that
civil society comprises those organizations that complement (and contextualize)
states and markets, while at a lower unit of analysis social capital refers to the
norms and networks that enable people to act collectively ( Woolcock and
Narayan 2000). Civil society may be the more encompassing concept and enjoy
a longer intellectual history (Seligman 1992; Alexander 2006; Edwards 2009), but
its operationalization in contemporary research and policy debates has often
been made manifest through the concept of social capital.1 The primary impact
of both concepts, I argue, has come less through the novel empirical results they
generate or their capacity to forge an inherently elusive scholarly or policy con-
sensus on complex issues, than through their capacity to facilitate constructive
dialogue on these issues between groups who would otherwise rarely (if ever)
interact, and which necessarily require such dialogue in order to identify sup-
portable ways forward.
This chapter is written in four parts. The rst provides an overview of the con-
cept of social capital, and the second provides a brief survey of the substantive issues
to which it has drawn attention, especially as they pertain to the role of civil society
organizations in facilitating collective action, economic development, and demo-
cratic governance. Part three considers some of the key implications of this research
for policy and practice and part four concludes the discussion.
198 the norms of civil society
1. Social Capital: An Overview

of its Rise and Relevance
In its most elementary form, the idea of social capital provides a name for an intui-
tive, transcultural recognition that we are inherently social beings, and that this has
signicant consequences for a host of other substantive issues we care about
variations on the maxim that its not what you know, its who you know are to be
found in languages all over the world.2 Social capital, dened as the norms and net-
works that enable people to act collectively, provides a common frame of reference
for conducting conversations about these important issues across disciplinary,
methodological, ideological, and cultural lines, conversations which are vital
indeed necessary to the resolution of many of the issues themselvesbut which
otherwise occur too rarely. Indeed, I argue that facilitating such conversations has
been social capitals vital rst-order contribution to scholarship and policy over the
last twenty years. Pursuing these conversations in greater and contextually specic
detail, however, requires recourse to terms and theories that are more precisely
suited to the task.
Since the mid-1980s, both social capital and civil society have moved from
the margins to the mainstream of social science terminology. From the publication
of Coleman (1988) and then the famous work of Putnam (1993), social capital
became, for better or worse, one of sociologys most high-prole exports (Portes
2000) to the realms of public policy and popular debates,3 enjoying citation counts
similar to other everyday terms such as political parties (see Woolcock 2010). In
comparative terms, the use of social capital in academic discourse over the twenty
year period from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s increased by a factor of over one
hundred, while the companion concept of human capital increased by roughly a
factor of twenty, as did civil society. Few terms other than globalization can make
such claims.
Social capital has done much of its scholarly and policy work through its status
as an essentially contested concept (Gallie 1956).4 That is, its coherence and useful-
ness rests not on a clear consensus regarding its denition and measurement, but
like culture, power, and the rule of lawon its capacity to draw attention to salient
features of the social and political world that are of signicance in their own right
and are valued for different aspects of everyday life (such as education, health, and
crime prevention). The very fact that social capital has been used by everyone from
Marxists to rational choice theorists to network scholars and structural functional-
ists means that a universally agreed-upon rendering cannot emerge. While vigorous
debate is to be encouraged and expected, social capital is fated to be as controversial
as the broader theoretical and epistemological debates in which it is inherently
embedded.
Strictly speaking, one did not need the concept of social capital to have a
conversation about the salience of social norms and networks prior to its rise in
popularity, but to have such conversations in the public domain, and to have them
civil society and social capital 199
across so many different sectors and countries, something is required that is more
encompassing and tractable than these formal academic terms supply. For organi-
zations like the World Bank, for example, which itself had only established a
department for social development concerns in 1995, the timely emergence of
social capital seemed to offer a convenient discursive bridge between economics
(the dominant discipline at the bank) and the other social sciences (Bebbington
et al. 2006). For its emerging portfolio of projects that stressed civic participation,
harnessing and building social capital provided the necessary (if crude and
imperfect) discursive justication that World Bank vice presidents and task man-
agers needed to distinguish their proposals from those of more orthodox initia-
tives that focused on building human capital (schools and hospitals) and physical
capital (road, bridges, and irrigation systems). Moreover, they rightly argued, even
the efcacy of education and agriculture projects turns in no small measure on
their engagement with the local social context. Community norms and civil soci-
ety networks, for example, play a major role in shaping the extent to which farmers
adopt technical innovations such as new fertilizers (Isham 2002). Independently of
whether such projects worked or could be shown to be demonstrably better than
their alternatives, they rst had to be demarcated, justied, and promoted, and a
constituency supporting them had to be mobilized. Using the language of social
capital performed these tasks.
For some critics, however, any such efforts seemingly amounted to a sell-out, a
nave capitulation of social theory and social spaces to the ever-encroaching forces
of economic logic, which in turn would only overwhelm and further marginalize
anything that was distinctively social (Fine 2001, Somers 2008). But social theory
is not so fragile, economic theory is not so robust, and some form of mutual
exchange is needed for sensible resolutions to be crafted in all realms of life, espe-
cially those where the topics of debate are inherently contentious.5 To be politically
useful, concepts do not have to meet standards of academic purity. Rather, they
need to generate productive debate within and across constituent groups, debates
that should include highlighting the limits of those concepts. And while deploying
different terminology is surely an insufcient lever of policy change, it is a necessary
one (as every national election and marketing campaign attests), even as the use of
particular concepts themselves must be adjusted with evolving circumstances and
shifting audiences.
To this end, in the sections that follow I consider some of the key ndings of
social capital research and debate in the specic domains of collective action, eco-
nomic development, and democratic governance, but laying greater stress on their
outreach to other realms of the academy and to public debate rather than to their
narrow technical merits. Understood in this way, social capitals positive impact
largely takes the form of its status as a public discursive good, providing a common
frame of reference around which a range of agreements and disagreements can be
discerned and rened across disciplinary lines and professional boundaries, some-
thing that is especially important for civil society groups and the types of issues
around which they mobilize. For many of the issues to which the language of social
capital has been directedsuch as social justice and equity, whose resolution largely
requires political, not technical, answersit was precisely these kinds of debates
that were (and remain) necessary to craft legitimate, supportable resolutions.
2. Applications to Civil Society

Research and Practice
A range of studies from across the sciences and social sciences have documented
just how central are social relations for shaping, and in turn understanding, human
behavior (see Woolcock and Radin 2008). As political theorists such as Aristotle,
David Hume, and Alex de Tocqueville have long reminded us, however, and as
Putnam (1993, 2000) made the centrepiece of his analysis, the nature and extent of
participation in civic affairs matters not just for ones own individual and group
well-being, but has larger social consequences. The manifestation of such conse-
quences constitutes the epicenter of the social capital literature.
a. Collective Action
A central claim of Putnams work (1993) was that social capital provided a mecha-
nism for resolving otherwise pervasive collective action problemsnamely, those
situations where private individuals, rationally following what is best for them,
leads to suboptimal public outcomes. The canonical case is the management of
common pool resources (such as water and forests), wherein what is rational for the
individual user (i.e., appropriate as much as possible) has harmful aggregate con-
sequences (such as depletion and inadequate maintenance). The most celebrated
work on this topic is Ostroms (1991), who at the time did not use the term social
capital but later came to embrace it enthusiastically (Ostrom 2000). It is safe to say
that Ostroms work enjoyed much wider impact as a result, thereby embodying one
of the central themes of this chapter: in and of itself, social capital was not really
necessary to make a core claim about a pervasive empirical and policy problem, but
casting such problems in social capital terms enabled them to be amenable to a
vastly larger audience. Research on collective action problems with respect to the
environment (Pretty and Ward 2001), community governance (Bowles and Gintis
2002), and climate change (Adger 2003) have all gainfully deployed the terminology
of social capital to draw attention to important collective action problems.
b. Economic Development
Research on social capital (specically) and civil society (more generally) has rein-
vigorated research on the social dimensions of economic development. At the micro
level,6 the work of economists such as Fafchamps (2006) and Barr (2003), among
many others (see also Durlauf and Fafchamps 2005), is greatly rening our under-
standing of the ways in which different types of networks are used by the poor:
immediate kinship systems are structured to minimize risk and retain identity,
while a more spatially diverse set of ties are cultivated to enhance economic oppor-
tunities. Related work by political scientists such as Krishna (2002, 2006) has shown
just how central are the interactions between networks and the prevailing local con-
text in determining who moves out of (or remains mired in) poverty, and the mech-
anisms by which these different outcomes emerge. This is essentially a similar
storyline to that formulated by sociologists of international migration such as
Massey and Espinosa (1997). Again, a close reading of this type of scholarship shows
a pragmatic, rather than ideological, commitment to social capital terminology:
these scholars use the concept as and when necessary, depending on the audience.
For the purposes of this chapter, it bears repeating that these types of studies from
different disciplines encounter and constructively engage with one another because
the language of social capital makes an opening conversation possible. Without it,
they would likely operate in parallel universes.
c. Democracy and Governance

Perhaps the boldest claim of Putnams book Making Democracy Work (1993) was
that social capitalas measured by a dense, overlapping network of civil society
organizationsnot only facilitated collective action and economic development,
but was ultimately the mechanism that connected the two together: aggregating
collective action into broad-based prosperity turned on the construction and main-
tenance of effective local civic and political institutions that make democracy
work.
Much of the subsequent work on this issue, following Fukuyama (1995), sought
to make trust the centrepiece of the analysis. However, if one discerns in Putnam,
not so much a clarion call to construct a clean empirical link that connects societal
trust to effective government and the wealth of nations, but rather an invitation to
revisit how the tone, level, and terms of everyday engagement in community affairs
inuence local politics, then there is considerable scope for advancement at the level
of theory, evidence and policy. Yet again, one does not need the specic terminology
of social capital to make such advances, and indeed for certain specialist audiences
to do so could be a distraction. But the more diverse the audience and/or the less
familiar any given audience might be with the ner points of social and political
theory, then the stronger the case becomes for deploying a concept such as social
capital which can bridge these divides.
Research in Indonesia on local government reforms is perhaps the best exemplar
of this process at work, not least because the main project that was introduced to
facilitate such reforms was explicitly designed on the basis of social capital theory
(Guggenheim 2006). In the post-Suharto era, a succession of national governments
pledged its full support for a major initiative to enhance the responsiveness and
effectiveness of local government, especially with respect to its capacity to serve poor
rural communities. The efcacy of this initiative has also been extensively examined,
empirically and critically, by social scientists of all persuasions (Li 2007; Olken 2007;
Rao 2008; Barron, Diprose, and Woolcock 2010). These studies make few grand
claims about the capacity of such initiatives to single-handedly and uniformly reform
local politics and reduce poverty, but it is important to note that social capital was
here conceived as a mechanism by which civic participationin this case, participa-
tion by otherwise marginalized groups in village-level decision-making bodies
could shape how decisions over the allocation of development funds were made and
enforced. Specically, it was hoped that by requiring funds to be allocated on the
basis of the knowledge of everyday villagers (as opposed to external experts), and
by requiring decision-making meetings to be (a) open to the public and journalists
and (b) held only once proposals from at least two womens groups had been received,
that the dynamics of decision making and enforcement would be different in kind
from those that had prevailed during the autocratic Suharto era.7
3. Implications for Policy and Practice

The preceding discussion of social capital theory and research points to seven issues
regarding the salience of civil society organizations. Some of the most salient exam-
ples are drawn from economic development, but they also apply more generally.
First, civil society organizations help provide important insights for contributing to
analyses of responses to poverty. In the face of pervasive risks and inadequate insti-
tutional mechanisms for addressing them, the poor have always drawn on their
kinship systems, friends, and civic groups to help them survive and advance. Savings
clubs, credit groups, and informal insurance systems, for example, even if imper-
fect, are actively created in many poor communities in very different countries.
Chinese diaspora communities around the world are famous for this, actively help-
ing recent immigrants to get their rst foot on the economic ladder by supporting
their entrepreneurial activities (Weidenbaum and Hughes 1996). A key question for
public policy is whether and how external agents can work with and complement
these informal (organic) social mechanisms in poor communities to enhance
their effectiveness in managing risk and vulnerability without undermining the
other important social functions such groups perform for their members.
As neglected as the community-level focus may have been in the past, however,
and as powerful as social ties can be in shaping survival and mobility strategies in
poor communities, the evidence also shows how important it is to understand the
nature and extent of social relations across formal and informal institutions, and
especially across power differentials, such as those between police and citizens, teach-
ers and students, doctors and patients, farmers and extension ofcers, lawyers and
clients, and bankers and creditorsrelationships that are central to the well-being of
everyone, but especially to the poor. In this regard, organizations of the poor are
critically important to enhancing their political strength in negotiations (or outright
confrontations) with those who are more powerful (Gibson and Woolcock 2008).
Second, social capital theory and research evidence can be instructive in help-
ing to improve the quality of service delivery. We are far beyond a consensus that
funding should be provided to build schools and health clinics for all; we are still a
long way, however, from realizing these commitments, with millions of children
each day arriving at an empty school because their teacher has failed to show up for
work (World Bank 2003). A key part of this failure of implementation is that the
social relations binding teachers, parents and communities are inadequate, relations
that are needed to underpin the accountability mechanisms that ensure that learn-
ing actually takes place. While there is considerable concern over the content of
education (i.e., the curriculum), of more fundamental concern is that teaching and
learning takes place in and through an ongoing social process, most particularly a
face-to-face relationship between teacher and student that is sustained for six hours
a day, two hundred days a year, for over a decade. Similar processes are needed to
sustain medical, legal, and other social services (Pritchett and Woolcock 2004).
Third, a social capital perspective can be instrumental in helping to address a
particularly difcult and complex set of development problems, namely those that
require negotiated rather than technical solutions. While experts are necessary for
addressing particular types of development problems (e.g., how to design roads
that will function in high rainfall environments), there are many othersmost
especially those pertaining to political and legal reformthat are deeply context-
specic and whose efcacy turns on the legitimacy that is afforded to them by virtue
of the political contests through which they have emerged. A social capital perspec-
tive rightly places considerable emphasis on the vibrancy of the civic spaces that
nurture and sustain such contests (Briggs 2008). As countries such as Indonesia,
Vietnam, and China become more open societies, for example, the quality and
accessibility of these civic spaces, and the degree of equity that characterizes the
contests within them, will be central to identifying and implementing effective solu-
tions to context-specic problems. In these realms, more experts, whether foreign
or domestic, cannot arrive at the right answer (or even if they can, it is a qualita-
tively different answer if the same verdict is reached via a deliberative process).
Fourth, political movements towards greater openness and complexity in deci-
sion making will most likely entail increased demands for citizen participation.
State-society relations will be a key arena in which change will occur as countries
(especially those that are large and experiencing rapid growth, such as China and
India) becomes more prosperous. Specically, this will be an arena for reconceiving
accountability mechanisms, from patronage arrangements that are almost exclu-
sively upward to proto-democratic arrangements that are incrementally downward.
Rising literacy, for example, will mean that citizens will be better positioned to more
forcefully and accurately assert their demands and aspirations (by accessing the
media and by harnessing data to support their arguments); their leaders in turn will
face increasing pressures to be more responsive to them. The issuance of basic
markers of identity and citizenship (such as birth, marriage, and death certicates)
will also enhance these pressures (Szreter 2007). The social compact between citi-
zens and politicians will therefore need to shift from one of intimidation, neglect or
mistrust to more open collaboration.
Fifth, everything that is known from social and political theory suggests that
organizational change, and especially rapid change, is associated with conict (Bates
2000). This is already taking place across China (Muldavin 2006), and the pressures
underpinning it are only likely to increase as a result of Chinas rapid growth.
Importantly, these conicts are a product of development success, not failure.
Urbanization, migration, rising literacy, and changes in occupational categories,
social status, and political inuence are all factors that will alter the prevailing power
structures, normative expectations, social identities, and systems of rules from the
household level, to civil society, to the nation as a whole. The creation of new civic
spaces for addressing these conicts in a relatively peaceful manner, well before they
become violent, will be crucial not only for sustaining growth, but nurturing a new
and more dynamic social compact on which such continued growth will ultimately
rest. In the decade following the East Asian nancial crisis, Indonesias triple
transitionfrom autocracy to democracy, from corporatist to open economy, and
from centralized to decentralized political administrationhas been truly remark-
able, not least because it has occurred with relatively minimal violent conict, and
it is at least plausible to argue that this is a result of development policies explicitly
designed to work with and nurture Indonesias civic organizations (Guggenheim
2006; Barron, Diprose, and Woolcock 2010).
Sixth, rising prosperity, mobility, and transportation and communication can
only make countries more, not less, diverse in the coming decades. This is true for
virtually all countries, but is especially signicant for rapidly growing (and thus
changing) countries such as India, Vietnam, and China. Not only will there be more
diverse sources of identity (actually and potentially) from a strict demographic per-
spective (including occupation, language, and location) as populations expand and
interact, but there will also be (a) greater awareness of it, (b) greater political salience
attached to it, and (c) greater demands on individuals (and groups) to manage mul-
tiple forms and sources of identity at any given moment in time and over their
lifetime. Moreover, social (and thus political) fault lines that are as yet unknown are
likely to emerge in the future, especially as levels of inequality rise and economic
(and political) opportunities, for some, expand.
Seventh, all these factors culminate in the need to reimagine and sustain a
dynamic, genuinely inclusive sense of social cohesion (Easterly, Ritzen, and Woolcock
2006). Where and how the us-them divide is drawn is crucial in every society
and constituent community; there cannot be a single invariant denition, but a
exible, legitimate, broadly shared and still coherent understanding is vital. This is
especially important for the worlds largest and fastest growing (hence potentially
most rapidly changing) countries, and for those countries seeking to make a dura-
ble transition from autocratic to democratic governance. Nurturing the spaces, pro-
viding the resources, and enhancing the procedures for underpinning equitable
contests between a countrys different stakeholders is central to this challenge. These

contests, by denition, cannot always be harmonious, but they can be waged in such
a way that their outcomes are perceived as fair and legitimate.
4. Conclusion
For all the criticism that has surrounding it, social capital nonetheless remains
unambiguously one of social sciences most successful exports, and should be rec-
ognized as such. For this initial success to reach its full potential, however, the chal-
lenge remains to deploy a secondary set of tools and concepts that are better suited
to enabling a more nuanced and sophisticated conversation on the wide range of
specic issues that merit attention. There will always be a place for a term that can
convey the essence of social science to larger audiences, but that term (whatever it
is) should not be expected to carry a load it cannot bear. Social capital is destined to
be as controversial as the broader theoretical, empirical, and epistemological debates
in which it is necessarily embedded, and as such it will continue to occupy the
beguiling status of a necessarily contested concept. It is to the substantive issues to
which the social capital literature draws attentionand the accompanying debates
that it has facilitatedto which we should be directing our energies in the years
ahead, simultaneously encouraging broad participation using terms that are ame-
nable (including social capital), and greater renement in more specialized circles
using the more precise terms, theories, tools, and evidence that serve that purpose.
Civil society organizations have been a key beneciary of the emergence of
social capital as the terminology of choice for facilitating dialogue and debate across
diverse constituencies. Whether in public forums, corporate board rooms, the mass
media, or the college classroom, social capital has enabled such organizations to be
able to argue for and demonstrate the veracity of their concerns in ways that other
terms have not. Even so, the core premise of this chapter still holds, namely that
further advancements will require civil society organizations to deploy a dual dis-
cursive task: continuing to reach out to and engage an ever-widening spectrum of
groups (a task for which the general social capital terminology is well suited), while
simultaneously rening their theoretical moorings, evidence base and policy pre-
scriptionsa task for which more specic concepts will be more useful.
NOTES
1. Social capitals intellectual history is explored in Portes (1998), Woolcock (1998),

and Farr (2004); its development in applied research over the course of the twentieth
century is explored in Woolcock and Narayan (2000).
2. Southern Africans, for example, refer to the delightful concept of ubuntu, which in
its barest form translates as I am because we are.
3. Tellingly, such claims were being made when social capitals citation count was ve
times lower than it is today.
4. See Collier, Hidalgo, and Maciuceanu (2006) for a broader discussion of such
concepts.
5. Responses to the various criticisms that have been leveled at social capital are
explored in Woolcock (2001).
6. Research at the macro level (using cross-national comparisons) was launched by
Knack and Keefer (1997), but (as this section outlines) the micro-level work has been the
most consequential in terms of its impact. See also the macro-sociological work inspired
by Evans (1996).
7. Similar studies in this same category include the important work on participatory
democracy (Fung and Wright 2003), decentralization (Heller, Harilal, and Chaudhuri
2007), local democracy (Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva 2008), accountability (Fox 2007) and
empowerment (Alsop, Bertelsen, and Holland 2006).
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chapter 17
CIVIL AND UNCIVIL SOCIETY
clifford bob
The debate over civil society remains unsettled, with varying, often conicting ideas
about its denition, purposes, and effects. Lurking within this argument is another
even more amorphous concept, uncivil society. Proposed sometimes as a resonant
and seemingly obvious contrast to the real object of interest, uncivil society has
increasingly taken on a life of its own, particularly in the period after the terrorist
attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001. This chapter
argues that the concept of uncivil society should be strangled in the crib. In its vari-
ous guises, it contributes to needless conceptual proliferation while adding little of
analytic value. Worse, as typically used, uncivil society mixes a pretense at rigor with
an overwhelming dose of obloquy. The term is used to place organizations, goals, or
tactics beyond the political pale. Groups to the analysts liking are starred as civil,
while those she abhors are tarred as uncivil. Such labeling is both acceptable and
expected as a rhetorical tack in the thick of ideological combat. But if scholars are
serious about understanding rather than politicking, uncivil society should be
unceremoniously dispatched. This is not to say that academics should abjure the
quest for the good society or should remain neutral in the face of evil. But it is to say
that these goals should be segregated from analysisnot least for the sake of achiev-
ing themand that using uncivil society as a supposedly objective moniker fails
this test.
Like civil society, its doppelganger is ill dened. Indeed, like it, uncivil society
has acquired multiple, often muddled meanings darkly mirroring each of civil
societys own. In the sections below, I survey and critique the meanings of uncivil
society, some explicit, others implicit in the literature. These relate to the three
primary, though overlapping, ways in which civil society is dened: as associa-
tional life, the good society. and the public sphere. Corresponding to each of these
denitions, uncivil society is said to differ organizationally, normatively, and tacti-
cally from its twin.
1. Organizational Definitions
of Uncivil Society
In Tocquevillean terms, civil society is the realm of voluntary association among
free individuals. Distinct from and by some accounts balancing the power of states
and businesses, associational life is thought to be a crucial means of creating the
trust and reciprocity on which both democratic and market interactions depend. In
this view, a vibrant organizational life is thought to build strong and cohesive soci-
eties, particularly if it crosses primordial divisions such as ethnic and racial lines
(Tocqueville 2004; Putnam 2001).
Following this logic, uncivil society would lack one or another of civil societys
hallmarks. Most basically, it might refer to societies that lack signicant numbers of
voluntary associations. But the scholarly literature already includes more apt and
specic terms. Without using the term uncivil society, Tocqueville (1998; 2004) con-
trasted early nineteenth-century America, with its numerous associations, to the
atomism and conict of pre-Revolutionary and, more pointedly, contemporaneous
France. Others have analyzed anomic societies and amoral familism (Baneld
1967). Lacking in civicness due to an impoverished or predatory associational life,
places like southern Italy suffer from backward economies and dysfunctional poli-
ties (Putnam 1994). Adding uncivil society to these existing terms is unnecessary.
More worryingly, because of the phrases negative connotations, using uncivil
society in this way could cast aspersions on functioning, even successful societies
that have small voluntary sectors. The relationships between voluntarism, associa-
tion, political democracy, economic development, and social welfare are poorly
understood. The hypothesis that lively civil societies create the trust on which the
latter are built might be turned on its head. It may be, for instance, that countries
with strong welfare states do not develop large voluntary sectors, whereas in weak
states or those with limited welfare policies such as the United States, they grow to
ll the void. In the latter case, states may encourage community organizations
George H. W. Bushs vaunted thousand points of lightas a means of replacing
state functions. It may also be that societies in which extended families remain vital
develop weaker voluntary sectors than those in which family structures are dis-
rupted, for instance by high levels of individual mobility. In any event, terming
these societies uncivil would be unjustied.
Another alternative would be to label societies uncivil in which associational
life exists but is coerced or controlled. But the term has seldom been applied in this
way, and others are more apt. Totalitarian well describes those in which a state or
ruling party obliterates autonomous social formations, commanding associational
life from the top down, as in Nazi Germany or Maoist China. Illiberal democracy
is now used to describe countries such as Russia that hold elections but limit other
freedoms, including freedom of association. Corporatist has long been used to
describe European states formal recognition and strong support for privileged civil
society interlocutorsand the states reciprocal neglect or hostility to others. In
civil and uncivil society 211
Japan, governmental policies have deliberately encouraged small local associations

while inhibiting large, national, and political groups, creating a dual civil society
(Pekkanen 2006). More generally, it is clear that state policies strongly shape civil
societies.
In some societies, associational life is not managed by the state but nonetheless
structures itself along racial, ethnic, or class lines. If associations reinforce rather
than cut across these divides, an outcome that may occur naturally because of indi-
vidual choices prompted by cultural norms, the results may be opposite to those
expected by civil society enthusiasts. Trust may develop within associations, but
simultaneously foster mistrust towards other groups (Tocqueville 1998, 16162).
Indeed the more organized one group becomes, the warier the other may be, poten-
tially creating an ethnically based security dilemma and spiral of disorder. As
Varshney (2002) shows in his study of India, communal organizations may embrit-
tle societal bonds and facilitate communal violence, whereas cross-cutting associa-
tions may prevent it. But the long histories of stable consociational democracies
such as the Netherlands, Switzerland, and to a lesser extent Belgium suggest that
associational segregation may not cause or necessarily even contribute to conict,
and therefore should not be condemned as uncivil (Lijphart 1977). More broadly, it
is not clear that the violence and mischiefs of faction, a recurrent fear of liberal
thinkers, need be solved only by enlarging the polity or encouraging cross-cutting
associations (Madison 2003). Other forms of political engineering may work even
as cultural differences and organizational insularity are preserved (Horowitz 2000).
It may be, as Burke wrote, that lov[ing] the little platoon we belong to in society, is
the rst principle (the germ as it were) of public affections . . . by which we proceed
towards a love to our country, and to mankind (2009, 47). In any event, labeling
ethnic or class associations uncivil prejudges their effects.
Finally, uncivil might be applied to situations in which voluntary associations,
whatever their ethnic or class composition, undercut rather than build trust.
Societies marked by high levels of organized, apolitical criminality might come
under this rubric. So might the global scene, which according to then-UN Secretary
General Ko Annan includes such uncivil society elements as drug-trafckers,
gun-runners, money-launderers, and exploiters of young people for prostitution
(1998). Calling such organizations uncivil is rather wan, however. More important,
it is unnecessary when the sociological and criminological literatures already include
a wealth of terms to describe such phenomena.
To take another approach, some fans of civil society draw sharp distinctions
between the voluntary sector and both the political and economic spheres. In this
view, even if civil society is said to undergird stable democracy and functioning
markets, it stops where politics and markets begin. Some in this camp reserve the
accolade civil society for the friendly societies and bowling leagues that only spo-
radically and narrowly (if at all) engage in conventional political activity (Putnam
2001). Others hold utopian visions for civil society, as a potent autonomous sector
that might reshape the world for the better, on its own and against the pretenses of
state power and corporate greed (Smith 2007; Kaldor 2003). But this rendering of
civil society, whether national or global, is unrealistic because it provides no mecha-

nism for resolving the conicting impulses and interests that motivate a societys
myriad associations. This is the function of political parties and ultimately the state.
But suggesting that these entities are uncivil goes too far.
So does applying the term to companies. Some civil society devotees contrast
the business worlds competitive, prot-seeking activities with the harmony, sym-
pathy, and cooperation supposedly prevailing in the voluntary sector. But this dis-
tinction is overdrawn. Most nonprot organizations, a major part of the associational
universe, inhabit their own Darwinian worlds, vying for members, funding, and
recognition. Many are also highly professionalized bureaucratic institutions. Some
have opened their own prot-making ventures as social entrepreneurs, even as
many corporations take on new social responsibility principles. Many nonprots
rely on corporate, as well as philanthropic, largesse to operate. And many voluntary
associations, like businesses, engage in political advocacy. This convergence of func-
tions and approaches belies any sharp division of the nonprot and for-prot
worlds, making it untenable to suggest that the latter are somehow uncivil.
2. Normative Definitions
of Uncivil Society
A second denition of civil society associates the term with the good society, one
marked out by norms of freedom, democracy, respect, tolerance, cooperation, and
any number of other estimable values. At a minimum, civil society is said to model
these virtues. More ambitiously, individuals and associations in civil society strug-
gle to achieve them together. Maximally, civil society itself constitutes the good
society. Any of these three formulations would suggest that uncivil society is prob-
lematic on normative grounds, because it fails to meet good society values or actively
works to undermine them. Uncivil groups would be marked by internal hierarchies
and lack of democracy; would fail to promote progressive ends; or would be exclu-
sionary and belligerent.
But these normative denitions of uncivil society are also unsatisfactory. First,
many of the most robust associations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs,)
and social movements in the world today and in the past do not embody the virtues
of the good society. Often they are not governed democratically, even where they
promote greater democracy, tolerance, or rights. For every Amnesty International
and Sierra Club, which take a stab at member voting on selected policies and lead-
ers, there are dozens of groups like Human Rights Watch and Greenpeace in which
only checkbook democracy operates: members vote by contributing money to
the NGO and voice disagreement chiey by ceasing to do so. More generally, in the
heat of political battle, civil society groups seldom welcome internal dissent, often
leading them to splinter. Apolitical associations, even fraternal orders and mutual
aid groups, suffer divisions for any number of personal, social, or nancial
reasons.
Importantly, this lack of collaborative spirit, democratic practice, or any of the
other hallmarks of the good society has not stopped key civil society groups from
achieving their goals. Indeed, some would argue that the most nimble and effective
organizations are almost Leninist. Conversely, others would claim that real power
emanates from the spontaneity of movements acting in the absence of formal orga-
nization and hierarchy, but such conditions often lack toleration and respect (Piven
and Cloward 1978). The debate over the most effective way of achieving social
change will not be resolved here, but calling groups uncivil based on their internal
characteristics sweeps too much of associational life into the dustbin of incivility.
Rather than concerning themselves with such matters, analysts using public
sociology, action anthropology, justice journalism, or other politically engaged
methods often reserve the term civil society for groups seeking progressive ends
domestically or ghting neoliberal goals internationally (Smith 2007). This catego-
rization may be unintentional, simply a function of liberal predominance in the
academy and a scholarly preference for studying groups with whom one sympa-
thizes. Whatever the source of this bias, the literature implies, and sometimes states,
that groups which oppose such goals should be labeled uncivil. But this view is
based on two misconceptions: that civil society speaks or potentially can speak with
one voice; and that this voice resounds in a left-leaning key.
Proponents of the rst misconception seem to believe that civil society itself
will aggregate the variety of interests and beliefs that comprise it. In this way, civil
society may stand as a unied counterpoint to state or corporate interests. Along
these lines at the global level, some see NGOs as the conscience of the world
(Willetts 1996). Collectively, the World Social Forum is sometimes touted as a legiti-
mate embodiment of all the worlds peoples (Fisher and Ponniah 2003). In more
utopian vein, international lawyers call for a global parliament of NGOs and social
movements supplementing representation from states, even democratic ones (Falk
and Strauss 2001).
In fact, however, civil society (whether domestic or global) is a turbulent sea of
opinions and movements. Contending groups will of course clothe themselves in
phrases like the national interest, the public good, the global welfare, or the
future of humanity. But although abstract concepts like these are regularly
deployed by right and left, their concrete meaning just as invariably ignites dispute.
Only the democratic state has a viable if far from awless mechanism for aggregat-
ing the diverse interests composing civil society, or at least coming to denitive
policy decisions. Notably, however, such decisions are always temporary. Civil soci-
etys very diversity ensures that the losersthose for whom the new policy solu-
tion is in fact a probleminvariably reemerge to continue ghting. At the global
level, the situation is more contingent still. The ad hoc agreements which pass for
global governance are observed by states primarily when it is in their interest, and
are continuously fought over by contending NGOs and social movements.
Talking about the interests of civil society is therefore inappropriate. This is

true of social and political issues, from abortion to whaling. Much though some
might want to believe otherwise, there are profound and often heartfelt, rather than
merely tactical, disagreements within civil society. Rooted in contending values,
worldviews, and emotions as well as material interests, professional identities, and
scientic reputations, such disagreements are deep-seated (Sowell 2007). It is nave
to believe that, with a little more education or open-mindedness, the scales might
drop from the eyes of the benighted (Mouffe 2005). More important, tarring as
uncivil those who steadfastly oppose ones own pet aims is politically motivated and
analytically unsound.
Nor does civil society have a unied view of its own scope or power relative to
the state or market (beyond a likely baseline of agreement that civil society should
at least exist). Interest groups and civic associations endlessly wrangle over this issue
in policy battles. Meanwhile, intellectuals and politicians debate the question in
more abstract terms. Even when it comes to matters as basic as the meaning of free
association and expression, the concept of civil societys interests is problematic.
Within many societies, there are sharp divergences. This is true not only in tradi-
tional or authoritarian societies, where cultures or states repress groups they con-
sider dangerous, but also in modern, democratic countries. Consider Canada, where
civil society organizations representing historically disadvantaged groups won hate
speech cases in the countrys Human Rights Commission in the 2000s. Quickly,
however, the laws and their supporters came under re, rst from civil society chal-
lengers and later from court decisions. Who is uncivil in such contests?
Differences are even more jarring among states and within global civil
societywitness the very different ways in which the United States and many
European democracies dene freedoms of association, speech, and religion. Groups
banned as uncivil in the latter jurisdictions pass legally in the former. One minor
but telling result has been sharp transatlantic disagreement over free expression
among civil society proponents of a contemplated international charter of human
rights and principles on the Internet. The broader point is that civil society itself has
no interests precisely because its cacophonous components have so many different
views. Thus, the term uncivil society is unhelpful not just when it comes to substan-
tive issues but even regarding basic rules of association.
This misconception about the interests of civil society is often coupled with the
notion that it is primarily composed of progressive groups. As already noted, a
major reason for this belief is the comparative scholarly neglect of right-wing social
movements. Using the term uncivil society to attack conservative groups only rein-
forces this neglect, fostering an unrealistic impression of civil societys composition.
Civil society organizing is not exclusively or even primarily a progressive political
project. European anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups are important contem-
porary examples. Indeed, it is probable that for every movement of the Left, there
has been one on the Right. Consider the anti-suffrage and pro-slavery movements
of the nineteenth century which, despite scholarly neglect, helped delay for decades
the rights we now consider basic. The fact that these movements ultimately failed is
no reason to ignore them. Their capacity to affect and hamper progressive move-
ments must be considered as more than just the result of incivility. In any event, the
progressive side is also strewn with movements that died, or more likely were killed
by opposition.
Not to examine such groups leads to analytic one-sidedness. Overlooked is the
chance to learn how sometimes highly successful social movements mobilized large
populations, shaped political beliefs, and affected public policy. Scholars who ignore
this universe miss a key source of empirical material. Theories about social mobili-
zation, NGOs, and civil society should work regardless of ideology. They would be
strengthened if they were built from and tested against movements espousing con-
trary, even retrograde, ideologies. In any case, old ideological boundaries are
breaking down or simply do not t current realities. For example, Europes anti-
immigrant and anti-Muslim movements increasingly appear to be expanding from
a right-wing fringe to encompass new and surprising constituencies such as homo-
sexuals in Holland. In this, they resemble sons of the soil movements in India,
Nigeria, Fiji, and many other countries, which challenge both foreign and domestic
migrants and defy simple Left-Right distinctions. Again, dismissing these move-
ments as uncivil may be valid in political debate but obscures key issues in scholarly
endeavors.
But surely, those who promote intolerance, disrespect, hierarchy, authoritarian-
ism, and conictwho seek to destroy the good societycan legitimately be labeled
uncivil? The problem is that all these concepts are hotly contested, just like their
rosier opposite numbers. Calling their proponents uncivil impedes knowledge of
civil societys ideological range. It also impairs comprehensive examination of civil
societys dynamics, in particular contention between opposing camps. Such conict
is almost always part of activism, a point often missed in the myriad studies focus-
ing on only a single (usually progressive) movement ghting a repressive state or an
irresponsible corporation. Particularly in democracies and in the global arena, the
battle for public opinion is crucial. Yet this cannot be studied effectively by focusing
only on one side, rationalizing this because the other is supposedly uncivil. As a
critical but largely unexamined matter, this conict involves strategies aimed not
only at convincing the public but also at undermining ones adversaries. Nor is this
warfare conducted only or even primarily by politicians. Rather, on specic issues,
it pits committed single-issue activists against one another (Bob, forthcoming).
Finally, in some cases societal conicts may only be solved by accommodations
between groups supporting and opposing democratic ideals (Horowitz 1992). The
U.S. Senate, with its vast disproportions in representation between Americas most
and least populous states, stands as a continuing monument to just such compro-
mises (Dahl 2003).
If civil society writ large neither models nor seeks good society goals, and if
therefore there is nothing substantive against which uncivil society can be counter-
posed, it is also the case that civil society does not itself constitute the good society.
This viewcivil society as a political endpoint (Hirst 1994, 19)is associated with
utopian visions of both left and right (although the right seldom uses the term good
society to describe it). But the withering away of the state, whether to be replaced
by communal forms of socialism or thousand points of light conservatism, is not
only unrealistic but also undesirable, given the unbridgeable divides that rend actu-
ally existing civil societies. For that reason, it is also untenable to brand societies in
which this unwelcome vision has not materialized as uncivil.
3. Tactical Definitions of Uncivil Society

A third view of civil society portrays it as the public sphere, the arena in which
political ideas are raised, debated, and decided. In this view, contrasting with that of
the neo-Tocquevillians, the essence of civil society is political. Private civic associa-
tions may foster norms of trust and reciprocity, but just as important are associa-
tions explicitly dedicated to achieving broader societal goals. Most public sphere
theorists would also differ from the good society approach. Rather than denounc-
ing as uncivil those who oppose a particular conception of the good, public sphere
theorists embrace plurality. The public sphere itself is the realm in which differences
are resolved. This avoids relegating groups (usually conservative groups) to uncivil
status on purely substantive grounds.
Yet public sphere theorists maintain at least an implicit conception of uncivil
society based primarily on tactical factors and groups who reject the assumptions,
processes, or outcomes of deliberative democracy. Consider the views of Jrgen
Habermas (1991). His elaborate and impressive rendition of an ideal deliberative
forum assumes at least basic agreement on certain foundational rules. These include
equal consideration and hearing; fairness of the forum; and perhaps most impor-
tantly, acceptance of the substantive outcomes of such procedures.1 These tenets
may apply in forums such as courtrooms. They are less applicable to the free-
wheeling and never-ending debates that characterize real political life. In these situ-
ations, much is up for grabs, including everything from the proper decision-making
institution, to who may participate, to the validity of evidence. In addition, there is
no guarantee that groups will accept decisions reached in the most rule-bound of
institutions or by the most democratic of methods. Rather, many groups that are
clearly part of the public sphere keep on ghting for their values indenitely. On the
right, consider anti-abortion activists in the United States who reject the Supreme
Courts Roe v. Wade decision, or on the left, same-sex marriage advocates who repu-
diate popularly approved referendums dening marriage as between one man and
one woman. Are they to be consigned to the uncivil realm?
Public sphere theorists would reject such a suggestion if based on substantive
grounds, arguing, contra the good society view, that a Habermasian world leaves
outcomes contingent on deliberative processes. From this same standpoint, how-
ever, those who reject the outcomes of deliberative processes might well be consid-
ered uncivil. But this way of dening uncivil society places too much weight on
civility and leads to a reductio ad absurdum: Those who care most deeply about
their valuesthe activists and advocates who keep on ghting for their goals no
matter how deliberative the processes through which policy is madeare trans-
formed into the uncivil.
This point becomes particularly clear when thinking of the most important
political movements of the modern era. Much of civil societys power has come
when such groups engage in criminality for a cause, or civil disobedience, when
they have refused to accept the outcome of deliberative processes deemed fair and
adequate by their societies. Recent people power mobilizations from the Philippines
anti-Marcos movement, to Mexicos 1994 Zapatista rebellion, to environmental pro-
tests in Europe, exemplify the use of force to challenge political regimes, social sys-
tems, and policy choices. One could argue that in these cases the laws that were
broken were wrong because they were promulgated through objectively exclu-
sionary and unfair processes or were transcended by some higher political purpose.
Certainly, activists from Indias nationalist movement to South Africas anti-
apartheid activists have justiably made the former claim. Others such as the
anti-nuclear and environmental movements have made the latter. But in both
situations, governing institutions and the dominant civil society actors who bol-
ster them have begged to differ. For scholars, however, accepting the authorities
charges about who is uncivil makes little sense. A better tack is to analyze equally
both those who defend and those who defy deliberation in the public sphere.
What of groups that go beyond civil disobedience and people power to the
strategic threat or the actual use of violence for political advantage? Surely, these at
least should be dened as uncivil (Payne 2000). Again however, there are good rea-
sons to avoid this label, at least for scholarly study. First, given the multitude of
meanings associated with both civil and uncivil society, more specic terms are
preferable. This is particularly the case because political violence takes vastly differ-
ent forms and degrees, with targets ranging from public property to state ofcials to
private citizens, each of which is better described narrowly rather than under the
expansive and opaque umbrella of the uncivil. Second, many political associations
and most social movements include a variety of tactics in their repertoire. Even
those that self-consciously aim for nonviolence can seldom control all their adher-
ents. This is particularly true of the largest and often most important movements.
Their diverse and informal memberships make strategic control and tactical unifor-
mity difcult. The responses of targeted authorities can also lead to spontaneous
outbursts from movement constituents, even leaving aside the possibility of agent
provocateurs. Given this diversity and ferment, uncivil society is too blunt a term to
describe large-scale movements and associations.
Third, it is important for civil society scholars to acknowledge the possibility
that violence may, for better or worse, be an effective means of reaching political
goals, even estimable ones. This in no way suggests that it should be a preferred
strategy but merely states a proposition that some civil society enthusiasts reject
out of hand. Certainly, nonviolent activism has scored real political gains, as
Europes anticommunist movements, Americas civil rights movement, and many
other cases amply demonstrate (Sharp 2005).2 But, all too obviously, violence by
states and nonstate actors has also made history and continues to do so today.
Certainly, it is legitimate for scholars to label groups that use certain tactics as vio-
lent or terrorist. Narrowly dened, such terms are analytically helpful even if polit-
ical combatants also use them in far looser ways. The term uncivil, however, does
not meet that test.
4. Conclusion
In recent years, uncivil society, civil societys dark twin, has increasingly appeared in
scholarly and policy discussions. The temptations to use this term are great.
Opposites often illuminate, and all that an analyst sees in civil society can seemingly
be highlighted by contrasting it to the uncivil. Better yet, one can win points by
doing so. Few admire incivility even if they deploy it in the heat of political
inghting.
But using the term also exacts costs, particularly for scholars. A major reason is
that civil society itself has multiple meanings. As a result, uncivil societys referent is
never clear and unambiguous. More important, using the term can limit or fore-
close much-needed analysis of powerful if sometimes repugnant organizations,
goals, or tactics. A better strategy is to open analysis widely, to reject hazy terminol-
ogy, and to avoid prejudicing scholarly debate with pejorative verbiage.
NOTES
1. Habermas holds that state authority is not part of the political public sphere but
only its executor, enacting laws rooted in democratic public opinion (1974, 49).
2. It is often forgotten, however, that important parts of the civil rights movement
used deadly force in self-defense, as advocated by Robert Williamss 1962 book Negroes with
Guns.
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Press/docs/1998/19980714.sgsm6638.html.
Baneld, E. C. 1967. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. New York: The Free Press.
Bob, C. Forthcoming. Globalizing the Right-Wing: Conservative Activism and World Politics.
Burke, E. 2009. Reections on the Revolution in France. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dahl, R. A. 2003. How Democratic is the American Constitution? 2nd ed. New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press.
Falk, R., and A. Strauss. 2001. Toward a Global Parliament. Foreign Affairs, 80(1), Jan./Feb,
21220.
Fisher, W. F., and T. Ponniah, eds. 2003. Another World is Possible: Popular Alternatives to
Globalization at the World Social Forum. London: Zed Books.
Habermas, J. 1974. The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964). Trans. S. Lennox
and F. Lennox. New German Critique 3: 4955.
. 1991. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of
Bourgeois Society. Trans. T. Burger. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Hirst, P. Q. 1994. Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic and Social Governance.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Horowitz, D. L. 1992. A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided
Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
. 2000. Ethnic Groups in Conict. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kaldor, M. 2003. Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Lijphart, A. 1977. Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven,
Madison, J. 2003. Federalist No. 10. The Federalist Papers. New York: Signet.
Mouffe, C. 2005. On the Political. New York: Routledge.
Payne, L. A. 2000. Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right Wing and Democracy in Latin
America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Pekkanen, R. 2006. Japans Dual Civil Society: Members Without Advocates. Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press.
Piven, F. F., and R. Cloward. 1978. Poor Peoples Movements: Why They Succeed, How They
Fail. New York: Vintage.
Putnam, R. D. 1994. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Simon & Schuster.
Sharp, G. 2005. Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice And 21st Century
Potential. Manchester, N.H.: Extending Horizons Books.
Smith, J. 2007. Social Movements for Global Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Sowell, T. 2007. A Conict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, rev. ed. New
York: Basic Books.
Tocqueville, A. 1998 (1856). The Old Regime and the Revolution, vol. 1. Trans. A. S. Kahan.
. 2004 (1835, 1840). Democracy in America. Trans. A. Goldhammer. New York: Library
of America.
Willetts, P. 1996. The Conscience of the World: The Inuence of Non-Governmental
Organizations in the U.N. System. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
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chapter 18
CIVIL SOCIETY AND CIVILITY
nina eliasoph
Theorists and policy makers hope that participation in civic associations natu-
rally teaches people how to be civilto be polite, respectful, tolerant, and decent
to one another. They also hope that learning this face-to-face civility goes naturally
with learning to act civiclythat is, to press for wider changes, including political
policies, that will extend respect and decency throughout society. These three
elementscivility, civicness, and the civic associationcome from different strands
of theorizing about civil society (Edwards 2009). They do not easily weave together,
but any one strand separately is weak, so braiding them is an important though dif-
cult task. How do civility and civicness materialize, together and separately, in
everyday civic associations? How can people work together in a civil manner to
change society? And what gets in the way of achieving this ideal synthesis in differ-
ent types of civic association? These are crucial questions for the civil society
debate.
Drawing on ethnographic studies from the United States and Europe, this
chapter shows how these three elements of civic life are tangled up together and
rearranged in everyday citizen action. The point here is not to prove theoretically
that tensions between them are inevitable, but to see how they play out in practice
and what might be done to lessen or resolve them. Only by allowing themselves to
identify these tensions can people begin to tame them, so examining the realities of
civility, civicness, and civic associations must be the rst step in the argumenta
careful inspection of peoples everyday intuitions regarding different types of orga-
nizations, because people know that what is polite, decent, respectful, egalitarian,
and easy to do in one situation would be difcult, and perhaps hopelessly out of
place, elsewhere. What is polite in a civic association might not be polite in a family,
a bank, or a school; and what is civil in one kind of civic association or culture may
not be so in another.
civil society and civility 221
When considering how any particular association shapes vague sentiments into
collective action, the rst question to ask is What do the participants assume that
they are doing together here? Civic associations, however one denes this universe,
are not all the same in this regard. Different implicit denitions of civility make it
possible for participants to imagine different kinds of connections between good
treatment of people face-to-face, and good treatment of distant strangersbetween
civility and civicness, politeness and politics. Therefore, the next stage in the argu-
ment is to explore some common obstacles in linking civility with civicness, par-
ticularly the roles played by inequality, diversity, conict, and discomfort. Finally,
the chapter examines how real civic associations manage to overcome these obsta-
cles, making it possible for people to imagine their own everyday relationships in
the light of a broader social context. They do so not by ignoring conict, but by
using it as a source of insight and a motor for social change. When civic associations
bring civility (decent, face-to-face consideration of others) together with civicness
(ghting for social and political change) they can nd an important key to lasting
transformation and the achievement of the good society (Edwards and Sen 2000).
1. Alexis de Tocqueville and

Contemporary Civic Associations
Why would anyone imagine that civicness and civility would blend easily together
in civic associations? Part of the answer to this question lies in the dominance of
neo-Toquevillian perspectives in the contemporary civil society debate. Tocqueville
makes the case for an explicit link when he describes the importance of local citi-
zens involvement in their communities: To gain the affection and respect of your
immediate neighbors, a long succession of little services rendered and of obscure
good deeds, a constant habit of kindness and an established reputation for disinter-
estedness, are required ([1840] 1969, 511).
Perhaps in communities of the sort that Tocqueville either saw or imagined in
1830s America, citizens knew each other, and were more or less equals. They could
quickly see and feel the consequences of their interactions, and make judgments
about how to be good citizens without needing much knowledge about distant
places. If such communities existed, it would be easy to see how civicness and civil-
ity might merge imperceptibly in them through participation and interaction in
informal associations.
This model is alluring, offering the vision of societies with no serious conict,
either visible or submerged; a world in which everyone could be equally qualied
and no one needed any specialized knowledge; a society in which diverse individu-
als could easily nd common ground and feel comfortable together; and a world in
which civic participation felt civil and egalitarian. But the real world is not like this,
being regularly fractured by behavior that is neither civil, nor egalitarian, nor
comfortable. In a diverse, unequal and dizzily global society, in which people can
inadvertently contribute to problems on the other side of the world or face prob-
lems that distant strangers help to cause, there are many reasons to think that civic
associations might operate very differently to those described in Tocquevilles
stories.
How does Tocquevilles vision play out in different contemporary types of
civic association? Consider two distinct categories: one is the purely voluntary
associationthe contemporary embodiment of Tocquevilles ideal; the other is
what I call the empowerment project, a hybrid civic organization that blends ele-
ments from government, professional nonprot, and volunteer identities and oper-
ates on multiple streams of revenue that impose different demands (Hall 1992). The
universe of empowerment projects has expanded enormously over the last twenty-
ve years to include nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) of various kinds,
advocacy groups, and nonprots. Many of these organizations have a mission to
build community, increase participation, promote diversity, and strengthen civic
engagementto bring governance closer to the people and the people closer to
each other. When participants in empowerment projects try to connect civility and
civicness, they face some of the same challenges that grassroots volunteers also face,
and others that are quite different. While their bases of material support and the
composition of their membership do tend to do differ, these organizations are not
so starkly different in their everyday operations, and the differences within each
category are just as wide. But although certain tensions are held in common, differ-
ent organizations smooth them out in differentthough probably not innitely
differentways. Finding successful ways of doing this is key, because although the
route to social transformation will probably never be perfectly smooth, it has to be
smooth enough for people to be able to advocate dramatic change without having
to resort to cruel incivility or violence.
2. Obstacles to Linking Civility

with Civicness
In pure voluntary associations, there can be pressure to limit group discussion to
problems that seem easy to solve: How to transport cans of soda and keep them
cold for the high school graduation? or How to roast twenty different kinds of hot
dogs to sell at sports events to raise funds for the school? rather than How to pro-
tect ourselves from the radioactive emissions from the nearby military base?to
take some examples from an ethnography of such groups I undertook in the town
of Snowy Prairie in the American Midwest (Eliasoph 1998). Such groups are fragile;
little holds them together but the continued optimism and good feelings of
their members. Implicitly, members may assume that admitting to fear and
acknowledging conict could easily undermine this delicate, essential can-do

feeling. Parents in a group that raised funds for the local high school, for example,
knew about problems like radioactive emissions, race riots at the school, and gov-
ernment funding problems, which became hard to ignore when the school library
roof caved in. They talked passionately about these problems when they were out-
side group meetings, but not when they were inside the meetings. Such potentially
difcult and discouragingand possibly conicting expressionswere deemed
out of place and uncivil.
Empowerment projects may share these reasons for avoiding major political
issues that might evoke conict or discouragement. They also may have nancial
reasons for doing so because of the reactions of their funders. For example in
Americas War on Poverty in the 1960s, government tried to defuse widespread
inner city riots by inviting poor people to participate in tame, peaceful forums.
But when poor people demanded money for schools, housing, or health care, the
government canceled their invitation. Expensive or radical change was not the kind
of participation that policy makers had hoped to nd and fund (van Til and van Til
1970). If the War on Poverty is a valid example, then empowerment projects may
have strong reasons to foster politeness minus politics. On the other hand, empow-
erment projects might have more tolerance for conict and discouragement than
purely voluntary associations, partly because paid employees cannot quit as easily
as volunteerstheir jobs, incomes, and reputations are at stake. So what is it that
determines whether empowerment projects and voluntary associations press par-
ticipants to connect their face-to-face civility with larger visions of social change?
The rst issue concerns the role of equality and the distribution of expertise. In
Tocquevilles model, local peoples intimate familiarity with a place and with each
other is crucial, on the assumption that they know their own lives best. But in the
1830s no one knew about global warming, for example, whereas contemporary citi-
zens have to develop everyday habits that embody knowledge about the causes of,
and solutions to, worldwide environmental problems (Luque 2005; Giddens 1991).
Activists develop expertise in the course of many years of working on an issue, but
egalitarian voluntary associations face a temptation to treat all newcomers as if they
do not require specialized knowledge or training, in order to keep them in the group.
In an ingenious interview study, Robert Wuthnow (1993) asked volunteers to retell
the story of the good Samaritan, in which a passerby helps a man who lies bleeding
by the side of the road. Neglecting any need for knowledge about how to helphow
to move him safely, where to nd safety, and how to nd medical helpnearly all the
interviewees focused only on the good Samaritans good and simple heart.
To take an example from my own studies of Snowy Prairie (Eliasoph 2011), when a
teen empowerment project resolved to feed the hungry, the head of the local food pan-
try and the adult organizers of the empowerment project talked past one another. The
organizers said that the food bank head was missing the point, which was all about
participation and democracy, and improving the characters and lives of the volun-
teers. The food pantry head thought the point was food. The organizers told each other
that the food pantry head was difcult to work with. To them, she seemed uncivil.
In empowerment projects, there is an additional temptation to ignore volun-

teers possible need for specialized knowledge and experience because participation
is assumed to help the volunteers themselves by improving their characters. This
makes good sense, but it can become a problem when inexperienced volunteers
resolve to help people who cannot wait for them to develop the required capacity
and competence. These examples show that while treating people equally is a good
long-term goal for civic organizations of different kinds, it is important to distin-
guish between the different kinds of equality that are required for different pur-
poses. Time is also crucial: with a long time-horizon, people can treat each other as
potential equals but do not have to be equals immediately on entering a relationship
or group.
Secondly, purely voluntary associations tend to be socially homogeneous, so
there is good reason to expect them to exhibit a comfortable, easy civility (Rotolo
2000). Even white racist hate groups in the United States hold picnics and gather
clothing for needy families: members of the Ku Klux Klan or the White Aryan
Nation say they feel like family or Boy Scouts in so doing (Blee 2003).
Empowerment projects differ: they exist partly for the purpose of bringing diverse
people together, and to build community, on the assumption that not enough of it
is there already. Grassroots volunteers have, by denition, already gotten along civ-
illy enough to band together. Empowerment projects, on the other hand, often have
to build togetherness on purpose, to rebuild social bonds (Bacqu and Sintomer
2009) both to bring people out of their individual isolation and to overcome divi-
sions between different groups.
Bonding with people whose backgrounds are very different from ones own is
initially uncomfortable. In an organization whose members enter with diverse
opinions and backgrounds, what feels comfortable to one participant in food,
music, ideas, physical gestures, slang, and even vocabularymay be annoying,
puzzling, or disgusting to another. It takes a long time for such diverse people to
make sense of one another, and even more for them to feel comfortable together. It
probably only becomes a learning experience if participants open themselves up to
a feeling of perplexity, and puzzle through this fruitful perplexity over a long
stretch of time. The activist and philosopher Jane Addams, describing her work in
a settlement house for early-twentieth-century immigrants to Chicago ([1901]
2001), went so far as to say that such openness to perplexity is a moral duty in a
diverse society.
Personal bonding may seem like a perfect way of linking civility and civicness,
if it is true that face-to-face contact makes people less likely to categorize others as
evil. But when civic organizations try to speed up this processas empowerment
projects do, often under pressure to show some impact for the next round of fund-
ing applicationsthe effect can be inconsequential or even perverse. For example,
to encourage young volunteers to get out of their clumps, adult organizers in
Snowy Prairie set up movie nights and dance nights, but young people from differ-
ent walks of life stayed apart (Eliasoph 2011). Sometimes, familiarity breeds even
more contempt than had existed previously: a quick foray into an impoverished
school can reinforce stereotypes about poor peoples apparent bad habits.
Nonprot-organized discussion circles about race in the United States may teach
black participants that whites are not as racist as they had thought; the whites are
much more racist than the blacks had ever imagined (Walsh 2007). Holding com-
munity suppers, as suggested by the national Asset-Based Community Development
Institute, provides another example.1 Breaking bread together no doubt brings a
certain companionship, but there are problems when the ideal of community build-
ing clashes with the reality of conditions on the ground. One is that people might
do what some children did in one impoverished neighborhood in Snowy Prairie:
bring large take-out containers to carry the community dinner home to their
families. The dinners were supposed to promote civility, but material conditions
made this hard. Instead of shrinking the distance between people at different ends
of the social hierarchy, such dinners can easily make it grow, because poor people
may appear uncivil in the eyes of their less disadvantaged counterparts.
Third, accountability requirements can affect the ways in which civility and civ-
icness are linked together. Unlike the Klan or the Aryan Nation, empowerment proj-
ects are accountable to many kinds of stakeholders, including funders, and must
prove that diverse groups participate in and appreciate their work. If the civility of
the Klan or that of privileged property owners associations that ght against low-
income housing in their neighborhoods does not create civic equality with distant
others, the impersonal bureaucratic rules of empowerment projects might actually
help in this regard (Beem 1999; Cohen and Arato 1992). They do seem to help, but
they also pose tensions for civicness itself. Documentation and transparency are
important in empowerment projects, but this accounting is time-consuming and
can be awkward. Many meetings in Snowy Prairies empowerment projects are
almost entirely devoted to nding means of documenting the numbers of volun-
teers, the numbers of hours they have served, the amount of food delivered to the
needy, the number of hours spent reading to pre-school children, and numbers of
pregnancies, drug abuse cases, and crimes averted in at-risk teen volunteers. To win
the U.S. Presidential Hundred Hour Challenge Award for voluntarism, volunteers in
these empowerment projects often spent more time discussing how to document
their work than conducting the work itself, or reecting on its successes and failures.
Such long hours spent on accounting could make a civic imagination difcult to
cultivate.
Because of the need to document their broad appeal and depth of local sup-
port, afterschool programs for disadvantaged youth have to welcome adult volun-
teers. These plug-in volunteers want a rewarding experience in a very short time,
so they tend to ignore young people who are too hard to help. These volunteers
want to forge an emotional bond quickly and easilyto become like beloved aun-
ties, in their words, over the course of an hour a week for six months or so (Eliasoph
2011). Paradoxically, this means that they often distract afterschool club participants
away from their homework so they can have fun and bond, or have snowball ghts
in the middle of the road at twilight. Since it is important to prove quickly that the
organization is building community, welcoming these unhelpful volunteers is
necessary, even though paid program organizers often suspect that those volunteers
may be harmful to the projects long-term aims and objectives.
When, unlike in Tocquevilles day, and unlike in places in which people are
more homogenous or genuinely share long-term bonds, civic organizations do not
emerge from an already cohesive and active community, then connecting civicness
and civility is hard, because activities that create civility also presuppose it. If the
organization is working in an unequal, unjust society, and is trying to create a better
one, then civility is a good long-term goal, but an organization will not be able to
change society if members start with the assumption that agreeable, comfortable
civility and good citizenship quickly and naturally emerge together from participa-
tion. Tensions between civicness and civility are not inevitable features of civic
organizations, but they are real tendencies. Within these tendencies, purely volun-
tary associations and empowerment projects share a great deal, but they also differ
in some systematic ways that make sense, given their different conditions of
existence.
When we locate these points of tension with more precision, we see that blend-
ing civility and civicness may sometimes be easier in more composite, less purely
voluntary associations. As Paul Dekker writes, There may well be sound historical
and political reasons for dening civil society as everything that is the opposite of
an oppressive state, or as almost everything that falls outside a dominant market
and opposes commercialization, but in highly differentiated Western societies the
civil society sphere occupies a more complex in-between position (2009, 226).
Dekker also suggests that we search not for a placevoluntary organizations
dened as a place that is neither market, state, or familybut for a quality of inter-
action in in-between institutions such as consumer activism, corporate social
responsibility, and public-private partnerships (Decker 2009, 234). These kinds of
organizations blend more than one kind of moral metric, mixing market and state,
charity and sociability so that participants are attached to each other in multiple
ways, and not just through voluntary and personal bonds. Rather than assuming
that we already know that there is only one placethe voluntary organizationsin
which civicness and civility can blend together, we need ner concepts that allow us
to observe the varied ways in which they are tangled up and rearranged differently
in different settings.
3. Making Civicness Civil

If conict, inequality, and discomfort are inevitable in voluntary organizations, how
do some groups manage to render them productive? In mutual qualication proj-
ects in France and the Netherlands, for example, which aim to improve infrastruc-
ture and civic participation in low-income neighborhoods, slum dwellers and public
ofcials confront, rather than avoid, conict (Carrell 2004). Project organizers
recognize that neither side is qualied to come to judgment about priorities and
solutions on its own. On the one hand, they assume that experts in suits rarely
understand the lives of the poor they aim to help. On the other hand, they accept
that there is no natural community already in place that is always adept at consider-
ing what will be good for all. The residents need to learn to be qualied too.
In a long, reective and emotionally powerful process of mutual learning over
the course of a dozen meetings and more, both sides express and analyze their own
internal conicts and the internal conicts of their opponents, and begin to see how
these can catalyze one another. Expressing anger in this context does not just mean
allowing outbursts of random self-expression, but managing conict. Managing
conict, in turn, does not mean making it disappear. Managing conict means rec-
ognizing and making conict useful. Teenage immigrant bus riders, for example,
hear from bus drivers describing how they became angry after years of dealing with
rude, fare-dodging passengers. The bus drivers, in turn, learn how the young bus
riders became angry after being confronted by the surly bus drivers decades-old
anger. Purposely evoking conict like this requires trained expertise, though even
with expert facilitation these conversations do sometimes explode.
Similarly, participants in public achievement, a project for young people in
Minneapolis in the United States, are asked to make a commitment for a full school
year to nd and address a problem they want to x in their community. But unlike
in conventional empowerment projects, public achievement participants have to
nd a conict in the issue they have chosen. If the problem is the quality of school
lunches, for example, the question has to be Who benets from this situation?
Agribusiness, for example, might emerge as a culprit. As in mutual qualication
projects, participants call this experience frustrating and difcult, but both exam-
ples transform conict into an invigorating source of mutual understanding. This
is risky, long-term, and can fail; the process both elicits and relies on step-by-step
personal transformation all along the way (Edwards and Sen 2000). This is not the
same as the volunteering-as-therapy described earlier, which uses volunteering
instrumentally as a quick balm to smooth over very personal woes. Rather, this pro-
cess enlists personal woes in the process of social transformation, each healing the
other. It is this combination of personal change and collective action that leads to
lasting results.
The problem of treating everyone as if they are already equals can also be sur-
mounted. Making people into experts is not the same thing as excluding those with-
out expertise. In Porto Alegre, Brazil, for example, impoverished citizens learn to
make the citys annual budget together, but not simply by entering the process as if
they were already equals in expertise. Rather, everyone has to build up, in steps, to a
point of full participation. It takes months to learn how to be an effective, knowl-
edgeable participantto learn how to argue about the science and nance involved
in paving the street with cement or asphalt, for example (Baiocchi 2002). Illiterate
people might have more difculty in reaching that point than others, so it is tempt-
ing for them to exit the conversation, but then no one would learn anything at all;
or that no one should have to learn to master any skills in order to participate, in
which case the tradeoff would be more equality against less effective problem-
solving.
As in Porto Alegre and public achievement, the U.S. settlement house move-
ment also had strict rules for learning how to become a volunteer (Hillman 1960).
Settlement houseslike the one in Chicago that caused Jane Addams to make per-
plexity into a moral dutyspanned the nation, and surveys of them showed that
volunteers were heavily screened: they had to make a heavy commitment, not just
of feelings but of time; and they had to accept continuous guidance from expert
social workers. Many dropped out before they had contact with the families they
had hoped to serve, but at least this reduced the risk that they would promise soli-
darity and then vanish when their charges problems seemed too hard to x.
These examples share some common threads. First, they show that the
more fully public and democratic a conversation is, the more it calls for micro-
management, rules, and procedures, to ensure that even inarticulate and shy people
can feel safe in speaking up (Schudson 1997, 301). No solution is entirely problem-
free, which makes participation slower, less exible, and less completely grassroots.
Second, these examples show that there is no substitute for time and commitment.
Relationships unfold slowly. Comfort comes only over time. Embracing and work-
ing through disagreement is slow. There are no quick and speedy alternatives. This
is especially difcult in empowerment projects that work on short-term grant
money and constantly need to recongure their groups membership and agenda to
make them appealing to new funders each six or twelve months.
Building community by design is not as easy to solve. Often, when people do
develop a sense of community, such feelings arise indirectly, rather than as a direct
result of the organizations aims and activities. For example, the famous Venezuelan
music education program, El Sistema, sounds very much like Snowy Prairies
empowerment projects when it describes itself as the orchestra as instrument of
community development.2 But the similarity ends there: The phenomenon of the
Venezuelan orchestra is looked upon as a miracle. Nevertheless, the achievements
are the result of constant effort and . . . [exemplify] what can be achieved through
constant work and dedication. Community arrived indirectly, when people learned
how to play their instruments well, over many repetitions. In contrast, Snowy Prairie
residents were constantly told, directly, that volunteering builds community, and
music programs got funding if they advertised loudly and publicly that they pre-
vented drug abuse and pregnancy, with no mention of the quality of the music or
diligence of the musicians. Their answer to the question posed at the beginning of
this chapterWhat are we doing here together?was supposed to be becoming
friends, and thereby preventing drug abuse. The pressure was on, and it was direct:
make friends now, and quickly, an observation that illustrates a conundrum facing
many empowerment projects: often, if community, friendship, and social bonds
arrive, they enter through the back door. Staring at them too intently makes them
disappear.
Bridging diverse classes and cultures is also difcult. It would be tempting to say
that problems of large-scale inequality simply cannot be solved in civic organiza-
tions but only at a higher level, through political policy making. But the examples
cited above show that the conditions of different civic organizations, and social
conditions more broadly, do not automatically encourage or prevent civility, or get
in the way of making a connection between civility and civicness. Problems cannot
be xed unless someone xes them, so we are thrown back to the question of how
to make civic organizations work more effectively to put pressure on government
and business to x issues that can never be solved by civil society acting alone, espe-
cially in very inegalitarian societies.
4. Conclusion: Utilizing Anger

and Discomfort
According to Schudson, The fully public democratic conversation takes place . . . in
situations that are bound to be uncomfortable. This is the kind of talk that people
are particularly loathe to engage in . . . it invites conict . . . people prefer sociable
conversation to potentially explosive conversation (1997, 306). Schudson is saying
that discomfort might be the duty of citizens who want to act civicly, and even, on
occasion, to be rude, so that democracy may require withdrawal from civility itself
(1997, 308). As an American protest song puts it, It isnt nice to drop the groceries.
It isnt nice to go to jail. There are nicer ways to do it. But the nice ways always fail.
It isnt nice . . . but if thats freedoms price, we dont mind.3 In the short run, some
incivility may be a civic duty; and it may be important to separate politeness from
politics in these cases. Assuming that all societies contain inequality and injustice,
this problema clash between civicness and civilitywill recur. But detaching civ-
icness from civility will not sufce as a long-term vision for civil society. Sometimes,
political conict seems to be a simple win-lose situation, a competition between the
rich and the poor, and in these cases the goal of incivility is to make it impossible for
business as usual to continue. However, the people who might benet from change
are often those who most oppose it (Gaventa 1982), and no one ultimately benets
from problems like global warming, for example. Environmental problems con-
tinue partly because too many people are attached to routine ways of traveling and
eating that feel too normal to disrupt without undermining their sense of reality. So
in the longer term, conict is rarely a simple win-lose competition: even the rich are
not the ultimate beneciaries if they have to cower behind locked metal grills in
their houses, under police helicopters patrolling the night sky. Being a good citizen
requires waking up and shaking up other citizens, and oneself as well, and hoping
that the others will eventually shake themselves up too. This is not easy or comfort-
able, but treating any conict as a cosmic split between pure good and evil will not
transform anything.
Ignoring our differences and putting the past behind us may sound tempting.
Volunteers in America, for example, often assume that looking forward, and
working shoulder-to-shoulder, will solve problems more easily than looking back-
wards at the causes of a problem (Eliasoph 2011). Of course, citizens rarely benet
by being deliberately rude or disrespectful, but, as this chapter shows, repressed
problems do not disappear. Using, and working through conict and discomfort, is
eventually necessary. When people are trying to change a divided, conict-ridden
society, civility arrives, in most cases, only as a hard-won achievement, and rarely as
a starting point. Perhaps at some point civic relationships will overcome conict
and discomfort. In the meantime, the question should be if and how civic organiza-
tions can acknowledge real-life conditions and make conict, discomfort and
inequality useable in fashioning civil societies worthy of the name.
NOTES
1. See http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/abcd/. See http://www.abcdinstitute.org/.

2. Fundacin del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles
de Venezuela, 2008. La orquesta cmo instrumento de desarrollo comunitario, http://fesnojiv
.gob.ve/es/historia/el-milagro-musical-venezolano.html
3. It Isnt Nice, by Malvina Reynolds (original version 1964); additional lyrics by Betsy
Rose (CODEPINK Songs, www.codepinkforpeace.org).
REFERENCES
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Baiocchi, G. 2002. Militants and Citizens. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Beem, C. 1999. The Necessity of Politics: Reclaiming American Public Life. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Blee, K. 2003. Inside Organized Racism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Carrel, M. 2004. Susciter un public local. Habitants et professionnels du transport en
confrontation dans un quartier dhabitat social, in C. Barril, M. Carrel, J-C. Guerrero,
and A. Marquez (eds.) Le public en action: Usages et limites de la notion despace public
en sciences sociales. Paris: LHarmattan: 21940.
Cohen, J., and A. Arato. 1992. Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press.
Dekker, P. 2009. Civicness: From Civil Society to Civic Services? Voluntas, vol. 20: 22038.
Relationships: A 21st Century Civic Agenda. Third World Quarterly vol. 21(4): 60516.
Eliasoph, N. 1998. Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life.
. 2011. Making Volunteers: Civic Life After Welfares End. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press.
Gaventa, J. 1982. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian

Valley. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Hall, P. D. 1992. Inventing the Nonprot Sector. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hillman, A. 1960. Neighborhood Centers Today: Action Programs for a Rapidly Changing
World. New York: National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers.
Luque, E. 2005. Researching Environmental Citizenship and its Publics. Environmental
Politics vol. 14 (2): 21125.
Rotolo, T. 2000. Town Heterogeneity, and Afliation: A Multilevel Analysis of Voluntary
Association Membership. Sociological Perspectives 43: 27189.
Schudson, M. 1997. Why Conversation is Not the Soul of Democracy. Critical Studies in
Mass Communication, vol. 14: 297309.
Tocqueville, A. de. [1835] 1969. Democracy in America. ed. J. P. Meyer, New York: Anchor
Books.
Van Til, J., and S. Bould Van Til. 1970. Citizen Participation in Social Policy: The End of
the Cycle? Social Problems, vol. 17 (Winter), 31323.
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Wuthnow, R. 1993. Acts of Compassion. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
chapter 19
CIVIL SOCIETY AND

EQUALITY
sally kohn
In the very rst paragraph of his important treatise on American civil society, Alexis
de Tocqueville wrote that equality of condition is the fundamental fact from which
all others seem to be derived (1899, 3). It is no accident that one of the rst texts that
examines civil society opens with this refrain, for equality is an essentialif not the
essentialundergirding premise of civil society in theory and in practice. High lev-
els of inequality distort the ability of associational life and the public sphere to artic-
ulate a democratic path to the good society. Moreover, as a component part of any
society that aspires to be fair and just, let alone that part of society that arguably is
charged with promoting these goals, it is essential for civil society to both emulate
and radiate equality. The relevant questions, then, are the extent to which equality
actually exists in different civil societies, and whether those civil societies are com-
mitted to, and effective in, advancing equality more broadly. Is civil society equitable
and, if so, does a more equitable civil society contribute to a more equitable world?
1. Defining Equality
What is meant by equality? Tirades against equality as a destructive idea are plenti-
ful,1 but they are often built on an overly broad denition of the term, cast as a
convenient straw person to attack more general notions of justice and fairness. For
example, the early twentieth century social Darwinist William Graham Sumner
wrote that the assertion that all men are equal is perhaps the purest falsehood in
civil society and equality 233
dogma that was ever put into human language; ve minutes observation of facts
will show that men are unequal through a very wide range of variation. Men are not
simple units; they are very complex; there is no such thing as a unit man (1913, 88).
Such overly simplistic denitions of equality aim simply to fan the ames of oppo-
sition. To say that all people are equal is not to say they are identical. Egalitarians
would just as quickly denounce this overly broad denition for its tendency to
homogenize diverse societies under a dominant cultural and economic norm.
Centuries before Sumner, Aristotle outlined a much more complex and nuanced
denitionthat the idea of equality as a central pillar of a just society is to treat like
cases as like legally and politically. Building on this construct, Nancy Rosenblum
has articulated a list of key virtues for democracy that include treating people
identically with easy spontaneity (1998, 350). And, arguing from the inverse per-
spective of what needs to be avoided rather than developed, Charles Tilly states that
democracy requires insulating public politics from categorical inequality (2007,
188). The Aristotelian denition of equality, inherited by liberal political thinkers
like Rosenblum and Tilly, stresses that where in certain key dimensions two people
are alike, then they should be treated equally under the law. The legitimate question,
then, is what factors should count in determining likeness and how far we should
cast our moral gaze in determining which groups fall within our sphere of concern.
Is a same-gender couple equal to a heterosexual couple in terms of the quality and
character of their relationship, and therefore to be treated equally under the law? Is
a factory worker in China toiling away for fteen hours a day entitled to the same
compensation as British banking executive working these same hours? Denitions
of equality are colored in morally complex shades of grey, not black and white. But
the basic notion that people of equal condition should be treated equally can only
be attacked by those who possess an explicit or concealed fondness for the spoils of
inequality.
Nevertheless, even within the liberal political tradition there is disagreement as
to whether inequality exists at a level that warrants particular and concerted atten-
tion. Among Neo-Tocquevillian civil society theorists, inequality is undoubtedly
viewed as negative, but opinions vary as to whether it constitutes a signicant prob-
lem in and for civil society to address. Liberal Egalitarians like Michael Walzer (1983)
and William Galston (2000) go further in identifying inequality as a signicant
problem for the theory and practice of civil society, but deeper issues tend to be
ignored. As Nancy Fraser argues, liberal political theory assumes that it is possible
to organize a democratic form of political life on the basis of socio-economic and
socio-sexual structures that generate systemic inequalities (1996, 79). Michael
Tomasky, for example, has argued that the American Left was ruined by multicul-
tural identity politics (1996). Reformers, adds David Brooks (2006), have come to
understand that they need to pay less attention to minorities and more to the white
working class if they want to succeed, and that economic inequality is a more per-
tinent cause than discrimination. Claims of racial, gender, and sexual discrimina-
tion are written off as crying wolf, distracting from more important problems
caused by economic structures that are seen as race- and gender-neutral. This
overlooks the interlocking nature of racial discrimination, gender discrimination,

and other forms of structural bias on the one hand, and economic inequality on the
other. In a world where the darkest-skinned peoples are the poorest and where those
with the lightest skin tend to fare best within industrialized and even most develop-
ing countries, it is nave to try and disaggregate these factors. But more importantly,
majoritarian theorists fail to recognize that the presumed dominance of their argu-
ments may have something to do with the dominance of their own demographic
groups in society at large. It is perplexing that supposed reformers can purport to
attack inequality in society while denying its existence within their own ranks.
If one rejects fringe anti-egalitarians who attack equality and fairness by cor-
rupting the denition of equality, and if one sees through the exclusionary argu-
ments of others who in effect defend the status quo, it is clear that equality is an
unarguable pillar of just societies and that furthering equality is essential to any
effort at social improvementcivil society included. The persistence of serious
inequalities and insecurities endangers civil society as a democratic enterprise and
places too much inuence in the hands of elites, writes Edwards (2009, 111). Because
inequality threatens civil society and democracy more broadly, the advancement of
equality must be civil societys central agenda, operating both within itself and radi-
ating out to society at large.
2. Radical Equality
The classic, liberal denition of equality in the operational sense belongs to Dworkin,
who denes equality as an envy free distribution of resources which can include
both political or participatory resources, economic or material goods, social capital,
and even more abstract concepts like opportunity and aspiration (1981, 10). Envy, a
morally grey emotion if ever there was one, signies not simply that you want some-
thing but that you want something that you cant have but have reason to believe
you deserve as much as the person who has it. Like the variegated and complex
nature of inequality itself, Dworkins denition is also fraught with complications.
In the extreme, it might reward those with a grander sense of personal entitlement
or simply fancier tastes, rather than the intended effect of providing equal resources
for equal effort. Yet in a world in which some people can drive down the street freely
while others are routinely stopped because of the color of their skin, where some
live alone in mansions while others are crammed with their extended families into
shacks, and where extremes of wealth and poverty persist, dening equality as the
effort to combat legitimate envy seems reasonable and appropriate.
However, I want to introduce the term radical equality to push the denition
even further. Classical liberalism, as noted above, tends to adopt a nice but some-
what innocuous concept of equality rooted mainly in political principles of oppor-
tunity and participation. Liberalism accepts a certain degree of inequality as
unavoidable, and its primary response in this regard is to create structures such as
public education and welfare which can supposedly offset such inequality. 2 Dworkin
himself insists that the liberal conception of equality is a principle of political orga-
nization that is required by justice, not a way of life for individuals (1984).
Critiquing the limits of Dworkins liberal framework, Stopler writes that the
equality espoused by modern liberalism is political equality owed to citizens by the
government rather than private equality that reects each persons individual con-
viction that all persons are equal, and therefore entitled to be treated equally in all
spheres of life by every other person (2005). In other words, liberalism is anything
but inherently nor fully egalitarian. Radical equalityand radicalism in general
challenges inequality at its core. Radical equality aims to abolish oppression in all its
institutional and interpersonal forms and replace them with values and structures
that are premised on, and actively demonstrate, the fundamental equality of all
people in the deepest sense. For example, articulating the premise behind critical
legal studies, Matsuda (1987) argues such radicalism is characterized by skepticism
towards the liberal vision of the rule of law, by a focus on the role of legal ideas in
capturing human consciousness, by agreement that fundamental change is required
to attain a just society, and by a Utopian conception of a world more communal and
less hierarchical than the one we know now. While the term democracy is argu-
ably complex and easily co-opted (as Fraser, among others, suggest3), radical equality
can lead to democratic communitycollective self-determination by means of
open discussion among equals, in accordance with rules acceptable to all (Anderson
1999, 313): a denition that links the debate over equality to the meaning and roles
of civil society.
3. Radical Equality and the Aims

of Civil Society
Conventional civil society theory often intimates that this sphere is substantively
neutralat worst, a passive, residual space in which forms of associational life not
otherwise categorized can settle; and at best, a more active, discursive space in which
the roles of government and the market are debated, but which harbors no consen-
sus on the outcome. Yet in reality, both historically and structurally, markets and
governments tend towards their own versions of radical inequality when left to their
own devices. The market is based on dominant models of capitalism that breed
economic and social inequality;4 while the state is based on necessarily broad, essen-
tialist operating assumptions that pretend natural or man-made inequality can be
overlooked, therefore allowing inequality to continue.5 Galston (1995, 521) has
observed that the standard liberal view (or hope) is that the autonomy of the
market allows diversity to ourish while diversity promoted by government allows
creative autonomy to be nourished. Yet not only does the market cut against diver-
sity (for example, the trend towards monopoly if unchecked) but, Galston contin-
ues, the decision to throw state power behind the promotion of individual
autonomy can weaken or undermine individuals and groups that do not and can-
not organize their affairs in accordance with that principle without undermining
the deepest sources of their identity. Just as markets provide incentives to the sort
of competition that takes advantage of and perpetuates inequality, state-based for-
mations rely on a glue of shared identity whose manufacture may hide or trivialize
important differences.
In the case of the private market, dominant models of capitalism rely on large
inequalities between labor and the ownership of production, and those beneting
from these inequalities ght hard to preserve and perpetuate such imbalances. In
the case of government, even for the most well-intentioned elected ofcials and
bureaucrats, the need to maintain the image of we, the people conspires with the
practical political risks associated with corrective measures to help particular, dis-
enfranchised segments of the public. In addition, those who enjoy extraordinary
benets and privileges prefer to imagine their success as the just result of natural
talent and hard work, rather than the unjust product of socially created inequalities.
Pointing out the facts of such injustice is disruptive enough. Actually trying to root
out inequality from institutions and interpersonal dynamics is even more so,
because those at the top of the system may end up with signicantly lessin mate-
rial (though not moral) terms.
Moreover, government and the market are insufcient to balance out each oth-
ers dangers. Expanding democracy and participation, which appear to further
equality, while masking deeper structures of hierarchy and unequal participation,
not only legitimizes the democratic political enterprise as such but also perpetuates
the social and political foundations on which inequitable capitalism thrives (Oxhorn
2003). Throughout modern history one can see how private enterprise can co-opt
the state or vice versa and, ultimately, advance inequality. This is why civil society is
so important, providing the only vehicle which can bring the behemoth of the
market and the leviathan of the state into balance (Oommen 1996). Civil society
exists to illuminate and critique inequality in government and the market and to
afrmatively advance equality in all spheres. As Edwards puts it:
The success of each of [the] three models of civil society is dependent on its
interaction with the others. If these interactions are to operate effectively, there
are certain things that have to be done almost regardless of the context, focused
on the structural barriers that undermine the conditions in which such synergies
can develop. Chief among those conditions are poverty and inequality, which
remove the support systems people need to be active citizens and deprive them of
the security required to reach out and make connections with others (2009, 110).
This more radical view is strongly rooted in civil society theory. Arendt (1998), for
example, dened civil society (and specically the public sphere), as the counter-
vailing force against an unchecked governments inclination towards hyper-
universality at the expense of individual liberty and expression, a process she labeled
totalitarianism. Gramsci (1971) appropriated the term civil society to dene a space
of struggle against the inherent inequalities and injustices of capitalism and Eley
(1991, 306) argues that civil society is the structured setting where cultural and
ideological contest or negotiation among a variety of publics takes place. In other
words, civil society is the vital space in which minority interests establish the collec-
tive power and processes required to challenge majority operating principles and
practices in society more broadly. Historically, this can be seen in examples that
range from anti-apartheid activists in South Africa who mobilized in civil society
and then formed a political party,6 to labor unions in the Americas that operate
from a base in civil society to check corporate interests.7 If equality, or any approxi-
mation thereof, is to exist in the private market or in government, it must be gener-
ated from civil society pressure.
If the mandate of civil society is to advance radical equality, what does this
mean in concrete terms? In particular, what does radical equality mean when applied
to the three dominant formulations of civil societyassociational life, the public
sphere, and the good society itself ?
4. Radical Equality and Associational Life

Because they exist within a larger society that is structured by racism, classism, and
other forms of structural inequality, the forms of civil society cannot be magically
immune from such injustice. Robert Putnam included equality in his denition of
civic community and, in his studies of Italy, suggested that political and social
equality strongly correlates with robust civic participation (1994, 88). Yet the reverse
is also truethat inequality negatively affects civic participation (Verba et al. 1995).
Rising inequality and increased concentration in the distribution of economic and
political power has correlated with a decline in broad-based associational forma-
tions in the United States and elsewhere (Edwards 2009, 89). That so much is made
of heightened and, implicitly, unexpected surges in participationfrom the increase
in voters of color in the 2008 United States presidential election to the participation
of heretofore subjugated tribes in Iraqs imperfect 2010 electionssuggests that the
exception proves the rule. Similarly, social movements from landless peasants in
Brazil to slum dwellers in India to American feminists in the 1960s and 1970s have
always created separate spaces for associational life in explicit acknowledgement of
the closed and unequal nature of civil society more broadly.
As the sphere from which the agenda of equality is advanced, it is obviously
vital that civil society must put its own house in order if it is to succeed in chang-
ing society more broadly. It is difcult to promote equality and participation in
other institutions if ones own affairs are exclusionary. Large numbers of civil soci-
ety associations have been formed with the explicit aim of advancing equality inter-
nally and transforming society as a whole. In the United States, for example, the
civil rights movement was one of the rst associational spaces in which blacks and
whites socialized, learned and organized togetherespecially in the deeply segre-
gated South, where associations like the Highlander Institute training center brought
rare racial integration to divided communities and, from there, a divided land.
Yet throughout history, civil society has also been a breeding ground for
increased inequality in some societies at certain timesfor example, the white sep-
aratist movement in the United States, early Nazi formations in Germany, and the
activist circles that schooled Pol Pot in Cambodia. Clearly, the commitment of dif-
ferent civil society groups to radical equality varies considerably, but even those
associations with clear, activist agendas often perpetuate inequality within their
structures and processes. Despite seismic demographic changes across the United
States, in the nonprot sector there, men are signicantly overrepresented in leader-
ship roles to the exclusion of women (Gibelman 2003). Similarly, one study of the
nonprot sector in Californiathe most racially and ethnically diverse state in the
United Statesfound that at a time when people of color constituted 57 percent of
the state population, they held a mere 25 percent of organizational executive direc-
torships (De Vita et al. 2009). Kunreuther, Kim, and Rodriguez (2008) have docu-
mented how, even where there are people of color in leadership positions, they are
overwhelmingly educated at elite, Ivy League universities. Similar observations
about gender, race, and/or ethnic bias in nonprot associations have been raised in
South Africa (da Silva Wells 2004), India (Kirmani 2009), Latin America (Brysk
2000), and the Philippines (Clarke 1998). The outwardly focused rhetoric of equal-
ity espoused by civic associations makes them appropriate targets for criticism if
their aims are limited to equality for members of their own excluded group. In this
regard, the associational realm of civil society still has much to conquer.
5. Radical Equality and the Public Sphere

Jrgen Habermas (1989) rst articulated the idea of the public sphere as a body of
private persons assembled to discuss matters of public concern or common
interest, yet Habermas and other thinkers have since been criticized for assuming
that differences between people are insignicant or otherwise avoidable in public
discourse, an assumption that allows inequalities to persist. In fact inequality is the
enemy of the public sphere and social equality is a necessary condition for political
democracy. By prioritizing an aggressive agenda of equality, Fraser (1996) illumi-
nates the embedded inequality in Habermass analysis and, by extension, in civil
society itself.
Habermas argues that a single, totalistic public sphere is preferable to multiple
spheres or publics. If multiple public spheres exist, he contends, it can only be due
to a failing of civil society to promote unity amid democracy. The parallels to
Arendts warnings about government totalitarianism are clear, and Fraser argues the
exact opposite of Habermasthat the existence of multiple publics is actually a

marker of a successful civil society and of democracy itself, and that people are
expressing, not suppressing, their identities by nding their own voices amidst plu-
ralism. Iris Marion Young places multiple publics not just in the context of seem-
ingly independent identities but also in complex social relations and hierarchies.
The public sphere can only be correctly understood in relational conception, when
such publics are constituted in relation to other groupings. As Young write, class,
gender, and race are some of the most far reaching and enduring structural rela-
tions of hierarchy and inequality in modern society (1997, 38990).
Herein lies another divide between classical liberalism and radical equality. As
Galeotti (1993, 597) asks:
What does the public recognition of collective identities imply in terms of public
action and policies? The liberal purist might contend that the liberal democratic
state has already answered this claim by means of the right to free association,
granted and protected by the law. This right plus the principle of equal treatment
under the law and some distributive mechanisms for balancing off the disadvan-
taged social positions is all the liberal democratic state can legitimately be asked
to do in order to accord each member of the polity, whether belonging to
majority or to minority groups, equal dignity and equal opportunity for his or
her identity to ourish.
Galeotti counters that it is the job of societythe state and civil societynot just to
create a space in which all identities can compete market-style, but to pursue parity
between identity groups. If social difference is denied public visibility and legiti-
macy in the polity, the group associated with it inevitably bear social stigma, he
writes (Galeotti 1993, 597). If the public sphere can be imagined as a uid space for
back-and-forth discourse, such stigma inevitably gums up its workings.
Radical equality also challenges what we understand to be included in the pub-
lic sphere, because historical assumptions about the public and the common
good are often built on inequality. Fraser (1996, 86) gives a powerful example:
Until quite recently, feminists were in the minority in thinking that domestic
violence against women was a matter of common concern and thus a legitimate
topic of public discourse. The great majority of people considered this issue to be
a private matter between what was assumed to be a fairly small number of
heterosexual couples (and perhaps the social and legal professionals who were
supposed to deal with them). Then, feminists formed a subaltern counter-public
from which we disseminated a view of domestic violence as a widespread
systemic failure of male-dominated societies. Eventually, after sustained discur-
sive contestation, we succeeded in making it a common concern.
In other words, both the process of public discourse and its outcomes must be dis-
sected under the microscope of radical equality. It is not enough for marginalized
communities to participate in so-called democratic discourse if the style of their
participation is hindered and the outcomes favor existing patterns of domination.
Presence is not the same as participation, just as the opportunity to compete is not
the same as equality of outcomes. Without due attention to the corrosive effects of
unequal social and power structures in society, the public sphere will merely per-
petuate such inequalities, rather than being a source of true, participatory, and
democratic debate that advances equality in society more broadly.
6. Radical Equality and the Good Society

Few theorists would exclude equality from the good society. Rather, the question
is how much equality and for whom, a question which points to the value of pro-
moting equality in associational life and the public sphere so that the contours of
equality are very specically discussed and debated, and the picture of the good
society comes into sharper focus. Polletta (2002) argues that rather than labeling
such practices as utopian (accompanied by condescension and a sense of impracti-
cality), equitable and democratic practices within civil societyespecially the social
movement realm that Polletta studiescan be labeled as pregurative, that is, illus-
trating the changes such movements seek to create.8 Perhaps the best example of
this process is the global social forum phenomenon. First organized in Brazil in
2001, the World Social Forum and related regional and national social forums bring
together civil society actors and institutions, including large contingents from social
movements, in a permanent world process seeking and building alternatives to
neo-liberal policies (World Social Forum 2001). The tag line of the World Social
Forum further evidences this pregurative agenda: Another world is possible.
Historically, the United Democratic Front played a similar role in South African
politics, rehearsing collective participation and civic action for the nations black
majority that would become the new norm after the fall of apartheidimperfect in
practice, but still signicant (Heller 2001). In a speech to the 2004 European Social
Forum, Wainwright laid out many other examplesfrom American feminist meet-
ings that include child care provision to movements challenging corporate domina-
tion of food production by creating local, sustainable alternatives. As she noted, we
need forms of political organization which can support and understand these prac-
tical alternatives and help bring about the wider political conditions in which these
alternatives can thrive (Wainwright 2004).
The idea that the good society might be dened by radical equality begins to ll
the normative void at the heart of much current civil society thinking. According to
Cohen and Arato (1994, xi), the demise of the most important radical-democratic
and socialist utopia of our timeMarxismhas already led thinkers to proclaim
the end of history. That a particular vision of equality failed in the form of the
Soviet state says little about the broader prospects for pursuing these objectives in
other contexts, but advocates of equality are often at such pains to distance them-
selves from Communism that they have distanced themselves from the idea of
equality altogether, especially radical equality. Less inequality is hardly a powerful
call to action or an inspiring vision of a better world, but the idea of radical equality
provides a bold and unifying vision for civil society, one that holds great potential
to move all institutions in society towards greater equity and justice.
7. Conclusion
Towards the end of Democracy in America, de Tocqueville writes that the tendency
toward equality is general amongst mankind (1899, 440). Perhaps he should have
claried that the tendency to aspire to equality is general amongst mankind, given
that economic inequality has grown in nearly every society over the last twenty
years while racism, sexism, and homophobia continue to persist. Given these reali-
ties, it would be nave to suggest that egalitarianism is the default thrust of human-
ity. Rather, it can be said that peoplecertainly those in the liberal political tradition,
but likely most people more broadly categorizedoutwardly embrace the idea of
equality even if they are inwardly skeptical or downright hostile about its full impli-
cations. These suspicions are only likely to multiply further under capitalism, which
relies on greed and inequality to spur competition. If government risks swinging
too far in the opposite direction, favoring cultural and political homogeneity as a
corrective to the cutthroat nature of capitalist economics, some sphere of action
must stand for the deeper ideal of radical equality, the idea that like shall be treated
as like, envy free, despite the best or worst intentions of markets and the state. Both
by necessity and design, civil society must ght the cause of radical equality. One
cannot conceive of an associational space that is truly effective and democratic
without embracing the principles of inclusion and fairness. Civil society as a discur-
sive sphere is at best ornamental, and at worst a new space for marginalization,
without aggressive efforts to ensure equality between the groups and individuals
involved. And any pregurative notion of the good society modeled in civic space
that does not foreground the aim of equality arguably offers no alternative vision at
all. But above all, if the agenda of civil society is to promote equality in society more
broadly, it will have neither the expertise nor the credibility to pursue equality exter-
nally without doing so internally.
Equality is a very old idea, but it remains ercely radical and subversive. The
idea that the measure of society should not be judged by the average of its wealth
or achievementssuch that deprivation at the bottom is mathematically masked
by blending it with outsized gains at the topbut by whether each person is given
the opportunity and support throughout life to develop her or his own talents to
the full and pursue their dreams, is a vision of radical equality that has the poten-
tial to transform the world. Civil society explicitly aims to change the worldto
shape markets and government, and social, economic, and political norms more
generally, through participation, public discourse, and revisioning the good soci-
ety. The central requirement of an effective civil society in this sense must be equal-
ity within its ranks, or at least the active pursuit of equality in associational life and
the public sphere. It is time for civil society theory to incorporate the central agenda
of equality more explicitly by acknowledging the insights that critical theory has to
offer, and by embracing the view that only by rigorously advancing equality will
civil society play its full role in transforming the world for the better.
NOTES
1. See for example Ellis 1998; Rothbard 2000; and Reed 1995.
2. See for example Katznelson 1996, and Schwartzman 1999.
3. See also Oxhorn 2003.
4. See for example Marx 1993 (1889) and Moore, B. 1987.; Human Values; and
Stevenson 1982.
5. See for example Arendt 1998 and Young 2000.
6. See for example Thorn 2009.
7. See for example Alvarez et al. 1998.
8. Pollettas main point is that deliberative democracy and other internal movement
practices in the pursuit of equality are not only pregurative but strategic and tactical as
well, but her analysis with regard to the pregurative aspects of social movement culture is
most useful here.
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chapter 20
CIVIL SOCIETY
AND DIVERSITY
hilde coff
and
catherine bolzendahl
Central to the understanding of any democratic and well-functioning society is a

focus on shared norms of civic responsibility and public participation in the polity
and civic life. In democratic states such norms and patterns of participation explicitly
or implicitly rely on concepts of citizenship. Put simply, the extent to which publics
agree to, and act on, their roles as citizens determines the strength of democracy and
the health of civil society. Yet this statement masks a variety of complicated questions:
what constitutes a good citizen and which obligations should they full? To what
extent do different social groups have different ideas about good citizenship? Are
some forms of participation privileged over others, and if so why and with what
effects? Who is excluded from participating in public life, and are the causes and effects
of exclusion similar for different social groups and different forms of participation?
These questions highlight the central role that is played by difference and diver-
sity in determining the meaning of citizenship and the constitution of civil society.
Traditionally, scholars have seen civil society as the realm of particularitythe place
where, whoever we are, we can nd a home without asking for permission from
above (Edwards 2009, 54). All civil societies contain a wide variety of associations and
agendas based on culture, religion, politics, ideology, and purpose, and the norms
they represent and advance may diverge markedly, including their relative levels of
tolerance concerning the views of others. This is why the public sphere is so impor-
tant, in offering spaces in which these different normative and political agendas can be
argued through to some sense of consensus. But the debate about civil society and
diversity goes much further than a recognition that citizens and their associations
express support for different social norms; it must also embrace the fact that there are
varying normative understandings of citizenship and civil society themselves. As this
chapter argues, the norms and practices of citizenship for diverse social groups may
not revolve around simple questions of more or less participation, but around
more complex questions that arise when some groups participate differently or have
different norms about good citizenship. Both participation and citizenship embody a
myriad of qualities, opening up the possibility that group membership may inuence
support for divergent norms and practices in many different ways. In order to inves-
tigate these questions, scholars must consider substantive variations in denitions of
citizenship and measures of participation. By increasing our understanding of diver-
sity in these arenas, we can position ourselves to appreciate what different groups can
bring to the theory and practice of civil society, and what they can contribute to the
vibrancy and vitality of the public sphere. Notably, such an expanded perspective may
also serve to undermine persistent negative stereotypes about the lack of participation
or commitment among nonmajority groups by showing that the fault may lie with
overly narrow measures of participation and its meaning.
The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows. Section 1 provides an
overview of the different meanings and practices of citizenship, highlighting how
and why diverse social groups may have varying patterns of civic and political par-
ticipation in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Section 2 illustrates the impor-
tance of this diversity across practices, meanings, and memberships through the lens
of gender as the primary form of social difference in all societies. We show how a
properly gendered analysis of civil society can reveal how and why women may be
pressured to focus their participation on civil rather than political society, and around
certain forms of associational life. These patterns may have important consequences
for the ways in which political outcomes affect different social groups unequally. The
chapter concludes with a summary of its arguments and ndings, and an outline of
some of the challenges that lie ahead for scholarship on this topic in the future.
1. The Meanings and Practices

of Citizenship
A participatory public is crucial for democratic responsiveness and is seen as an
intrinsic democratic good (Verba 1996). Therefore, systematic and persistent pat-
terns of unequal participation along existing lines of stratication, such as gender,
class, race, and sexual orientation, are threats to both political equality and demo-
cratic performance (Sherrill 1996; Lijphart 1997; Burns, Schlozman, and Verba
2001). Most research highlights the ways in which white, male, heterosexual, and
civil society and diversity 247
middle - and upper-class members of society tend to dominate civic and political
participation. By being less involved in public life, nonwhites, women, and/or mem-
bers of lower-class groups are thought to contribute less often to democratic pro-
cesses, be less well represented among a variety of political ofces, and benet less
from political policies and outcomes (Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; Parry,
Moyser, and Day 1992; Norris 2002; Inglehart and Norris 2003). For example, in the
case of the United States, much research has pointed to lower levels of voter turnout
among Latino citizens (Highton and Burris 2002; Uhlaner et al. 1989). In Europe
and the U.S. higher levels of civic and political participation have been found among
upper class individuals (Verba, Nie, and Kim 1978; Canzos and Voces 2010), and in
Belgium research has shown that womens levels of participation in formal civic and
political associations are lower compared to those of men (Hooghe 2003).
Such ndings highlight important inequalities in citizenship that remain to be
addressed, but they suffer from two main limitations. First, most of this research has
been focused on mainstream and/or institutional types of public participation, fail-
ing to recognize that groups may not only participate unequally, but may also par-
ticipate differently. Second, such approaches fail to problematize differences in the
ways citizenship is framedthat is, in what it means to be a good citizen and how
citizens themselves describe their responsibilities to their communities, civil society,
and the state. Just as citizens behavior in public life can vary, so can their underlying
understanding of citizenship, including concepts such as political participation,
civic duty, social order, and social responsibilities. To the extent that beliefs about
good citizenship are related to actual behavior, group differences in denitions
may also explain variations in participation.
In fact, the evidence suggests that diversity in modes of participation may be
more important to consider than ever before. Among industrialized nations there is
evidence that people are changing the ways in which they participate, and that such
changes vary according to group membership (Dalton 2008; Inglehart 1997). Older
social cleavages may be shifting and/or taking on new meanings as citizens in indus-
trialized democracies become more highly educated, technologically sophisticated,
and policy- and issue-oriented. They are seeking out new ways of engaging with
government, politics, and civil society that reect such skills and goals (Dalton,
Scarrow, and Cain 2003). To reect these changes, research and theory must con-
sider a wider range of forms of civic and political participation.
Group differences have the potential to both expand and limit a citizens ability
to, and interest in, engaging publicly (Dalton 2008; Norris and Curtis 2006; Pattie,
Seyd, and Whiteley 2003). Specically, American ndings dispute the claim that
younger citizens are disengaged by showing that, although traditional forms of
political participation such as voting and party membership are more common
among older age groups, participation in boycotts and attending demonstrations
are more popular among younger age groups (Dalton 2008). Young people in Great
Britain have also been found to be more likely to be part of informal networks com-
pared to older age groups, but less likely to engage in formal associations, especially
when compared to those in the middle age group (Pattie, Seyd, and Whiteley 2004).
Furthermore, cross-national European research shows that there are fewer

class-based differences in participation in conventional, electoral politics than in
protest-related politics (Canzos and Voces 2010). Also in the United States, although
Latinos have been found to be less likely to vote compared to white non-Latinos,
their patterns of participation do not differ signicantly in other forms of political
participation including writing to elected ofcials, contributing money, and attend-
ing rallies (Hero and Campbell 1996). Finally, different social groups have been
found to participate in different types of voluntary association. A straightforward
example is the overrepresentation of more highly educated Americans in profes-
sional associations, as compared to labor unions to which people with less educa-
tion are more likely to belong ( Jacobs et al. 2005)
Research also suggests some important shifts and cleavages in understandings
of citizenship itself. Theory has long considered citizenship as a multifaceted con-
cept (Marshall 1950), and recently more limited empirical research also suggests
that citizenship norms (particularly beliefs about good citizenship) are organized
around three principal themes that are commonly reiterated in the literature
(Bolzendahl and Coff 2009; Lister 2003; Dalton 2008; Janoski 1998; Inglehart and
Welzel 2005). First, citizens may consider political activity as the key denominator,
such as a focus on participation in fair elections that select government ofcials,
though nonelectoral forms of politics can also be included in this category. A sec-
ond emphasis focuses on a commitment to civic duty and social order, highlighting
the importance of abiding by the law, accepting state authority, and paying taxes.
Finally, discourses surrounding the social responsibilities of citizenship such as
maintaining a clean and safe environment, emphasizing tolerance, and accommo-
dating the needs and interests of different groups, are increasingly inuential.
Cross-national research demonstrates the importance of group stratication in
inuencing these divergent norms of citizenship. Among a large sample of Western
democracies, Bolzendahl and Coff (2009) found that respondents holding a univer-
sity degree are more likely than those without such qualications to focus on their
political responsibilities (such as voting, participating in political organizations, and
holding governments accountable for their actions), and their social responsibilities
(such as shopping in a politically, ethically and/or environmentally responsible way,
trying to understand people with opinions that differ from their own, and helping
others inside and outside their society). Respondents without a university degree are
more likely to prioritize civic duties as important aspects of being a good citizen.
Similarly, in the United States, Dalton (2008) found that a focus on duty-based
versus engaged meanings of citizenship varies according to group membership,
highlighting the ways in which increased population diversity also shapes and
expands diversity in citizenship norms. Younger generations are more likely to dene
good citizenship as being engaged in actions such as political consumerism, writ-
ing letters, signing petitions, and joining demonstrations, while older generations
put more of a focus on duty-based aspects of citizenship such as voting and serving
ones country. African Americans tend to place less importance than White Americans
on duty-based norms, perhaps becausegiven a history of racist policies and direct
government discriminationAfrican Americans have come to emphasize the types

of empowerment that accompanied the civil rights movement and stimulated the
rise of norms of engaged citizenship in the process (Dalton 2008).
Hence, diversity in civil society requires not only that we understand differ-
ences in participation among diverse social groups, but also that we reconsider and
expand our approach to the meaning of citizenship and the denition of participa-
tion in and of themselves. In order to illustrate this point, we now turn to an analy-
sis of civil society and citizenship through the lens of gender.
2. Civil Society, Citizenship, and Gender

Gender, while an important means of stratication in general, has also been found to
be an important, specic marker in understanding unequal participation in public life.
Obviously, gender cannot fully represent all the cleavages in citizenship that may be
found in different societies, such as race and ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation. In
some ways it provides a conservative test of the argument developed in this chapter,
given that men and women are less segregated from each other in daily society, and less
likely to face formal or informal discrimination in the public sphere, as compared to,
for example, members of different ethnic groups, among whom variations in partici-
pation may be even greater. But because gender exists in every race, class, and sexual
orientation it provides an important starting point for investigating other group differ-
ences, especially those that stand at the intersection of multiple status characteristics.
Citizenship has always been a gendered concept. Less than one hundred years ago
most women did not have the right to vote in nations that were otherwise considered
democratic, and even the granting of that right did not secure womens equal access
to, or exercise of, social and political powerthough,in the United States, at least,
women played a crucial role in the development of many civil society organizations
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century (Skocpol 1992). Today, Western
industrialized democracies have made great strides in promoting women and mens
formal equality as citizens. Womens representation in parliaments has roughly dou-
bled since 1970, and although early research suggested that women participated less in
politics as a whole, more recent studies show similaror even elevatedlevels of
female participation in terms of voting and other formal political activities (Paxton,
Kunovich, and Hughes 2007; Burns 2007; Norris 2002; Parry, Moyser, and Day 1992).
However, gender differences continue to exist in other areas of participation in
civic and political life. Among formal measures, Hooghe (2003) shows that Belgian
women have fewer active memberships in formal associations than men, and that
even those women who have an equal number of memberships devote less time to
these associations than their male counterparts. In the United States, robust gender
differences have also been found in political activities such as contacting public
ofcials and discussing politics (Huckfeld and Prague 1995; Verba, Schlozman, and
Brady 1995; Verba, Burns, and Schlozman 1997), and studies across a range of coun-
tries indicate that, while gender gaps in some forms of participation are not large,
they are certainly persistent (Burns 2007; Parry, Moyser, and Day 1992; Inglehart and
Norris 2003). Research that attempts to explain these gaps highlights the fact that
women are disadvantaged in the socio-economic resources that facilitate political
activity. Namely, women and men have different demands on their time, both in
terms of care work and employment. Women and men are also socialized to behave
differently, and women still face a variety of forms of discrimination which may dis-
courage or block their equal engagement as citizens (Burns 2007; Lister et al. 2007;
Lovenduski 2005; Schlozman, Burns, and Verba 1994). For example, men are more
likely to be employed full-time than women, and employment is positively related to
political participation, information and efcacy among U.S. respondents (Schlozman,
Burns, and Verba 1994; 1999). Thus, controlling for employment status may mediate
a substantial portion of the gender gap in participation. Yet it has also been found
that womens employment is not as strong a marker of different types of political
participation as it is for men, a nding that has been related to cumulative, indirect
disadvantages and a direct lack of leisure time that does not affect mens participa-
tion so strongly (Coff and Bolzendahl 2010; Schlozman, Burns, and Verba 1999).
Research in the United States also suggests that womens lower levels of political
information, interest, and efcacy are important explanations for gender gaps, inde-
pendent of other characteristics (Verba, Burns, and Schlozman 1997). Womens lack of
political resources may be rooted in social processes such as gender socialization (Burns
2007; Lovenduski 2005; Rapoport 1981; Verba, Burns, and Schlozman 1997). Women are
socialized towards a gender role that is more passive, private, rule-abiding and compas-
sionate, while men are encouraged towards public leadership roles, autonomy and self-
reliance (Brownmiller 1984; Fox and Lawless 2004; West and Zimmerman 1987). This
kind of socialization may contribute to womens lower levels of political engagement,
with differences in political attitudes and participation beginning early in life and con-
tinuing over the life course (Atkeson and Rapoport 2003; Rapoport 1981; Fridkin and
Kenney 2007; Hooghe and Stolle 2004; Alwin, Cohen, and Newcomb 1991).
One problem with these ndings is the tendency to conceptualize civic and
political engagement too narrowly. The possibility that the measurement of partici-
pation itself explains any gender gaps has been argued by scholars in the eld of
gender and politics who claim that research on political participation often focuses
exclusively on formal organizations and voting (Goss 2003; Lister 2003; Orloff 1996).
These scholars suggest that men and women have qualitatively different patterns of,
and preferences for, participation (Bourque and Grossholtz 1998; Burns 2007; Sarvasy
and Siim 1994; Young 2004). For example, womens lower average levels of socioeco-
nomic resources may make it more difcult for them to engage in time-intensive,
expensive, or highly skilled forms of activity such as campaigning for a candidate
(Burns 2007; Lister 2003; Paxton, Kunovich, and Hughes 2007). They may nd it
easier to participate in ways that can be incorporated into daily life without putting
more strain on already limited resources, such as participating in certain private
forms of voluntary association or activity (Stolle, Hooghe, and Micheletti 2005).
The greater pressure on women to specialize in the private sphere of civil, as opposed
to political, society, may contribute to gender differences in participation, with women
participating less visibly and formally (Lister 2003; Lovenduski 1998; Risman 1998).
Researchers have often demonstrated that women are more active than men in a num-
ber of nonpolitical voluntary organizations. Drawing on a Canadian survey, for exam-
ple, Harell (2009) conrms that men are more likely to engage in political organizations,
but women are more likely to be involved in social organizations with the exception of
those focusing on sports and recreational activities. This pattern extends into volunteer-
ing, where men are more likely to coach or donate time spent on maintenance or repairs
for voluntary organizations, and women are more likely to be involved in care work such
as serving and delivering food. Similarly, Pattie, Seyd, and Whiteley (2004) show that
British women are more likely to engage in personal support activities and less likely to
belong to associations as compared to men. Norris and Inglehart (2005) nd a global
pattern in which men and women participate in different types of organizations, so that
political parties, sports clubs, professional groups and labour unions are disproportion-
ately male; and women are overrepresented in associations that work on education and
the arts, religious and church organizations, the provision of social welfare services for
the elderly or disabled, and womens groups. In some ways these different patterns may
undermine womens contribution to, and impact on, formal political outcomes, but
womens informal or nonpolitical activities may still have important political conse-
quences (Burns 2007; Skocpol 1992; Koven and Michel 1993; Harrison and Munn 2007).
For example, in explaining the unique trajectory of the U.S. welfare state, Skocpol (1992)
found that womens groups exerted a powerful impact on policy choices despite their
exclusion from politics, and in Sweden, Hobson and Lindholm (1997) have charted the
dramatic role that women have had on national welfare policy.
Studying substantively disaggregated measures of political behavior, Coff and
Bolzendahl (2010) reveal that men and women do not differ in their electoral behav-
ior across eighteen advanced Western democracies. However, once attitudinal char-
acteristics are controlled for, women are more likely to vote than men. Thus, if
women were to develop an interest in politics and feelings of political efcacy equal
to that of men, women would vote more than men. Even though the gender gap
often decreases signicantly after controlling for attitudinal characteristics in this
way, it appears that men are still more likely than women to join a political party,
take part in a demonstration, attend political meetings, and engage in political con-
tact making. Active engagement with a political party is not something most respon-
dents report doing, but especially so among women. Such participation puts high
demands on personal resources including time and money. In comparison to
sending in a check, joining a demonstration or attending a political meeting takes
time and planning, and women who are balancing greater family responsibilities
along with work, friends, and nonpolitical engagement may be less inclined to take
part in these more demanding forms of participation. By contrast, women, on aver-
age, are more likely to sign petitions, boycott or buy products for ethical or political
reasons, and donate to, or raise money for, civic and political groups. This nding
holds true even when socioeconomic and attitudinal differences are controlled for.
Tellingly, these private, individualistic actions are the least resource-dependent and
the most easily incorporated into daily life.
Whereas gender gaps in civic and political participation have been studied exten-
sively, much less empirical research has focused on gender differences in the concep-
tualization of citizenship itself. However, men and women across a number of
Western democracies dene good citizenship differently (Bolzendahl and Coff
2009). In comparing support for a variety of beliefs about citizenship, women
place more emphasis on social responsibilities than men. In other words, women are
more likely than men to believe that good citizens should help others inside and
outside their society, shop in a politically, ethically and/or environmentally respon-
sible way, and strive to understand people whose opinions differ from their own.
This gender gap holds regardless of socioeconomic and attitudinal characteristics.
Moreover, women are more likely to focus on citizenship duties such as the impor-
tance of paying taxes and obeying the law. However, when it comes to dening a
good political citizen, men and women do not differ. Women are just as likely as men
to view politically oriented activities such as voting, being active in political associa-
tions, and keeping a watchful eye on the actions of government, as important aspects
of good citizenship. Such ndings suggest that, while women take a broader view of
citizenship than men, these multiple emphases may make it more difcult for women
to act on all the norms they subscribe to, thus forcing women to choose some areas
in which to participate less frequently such as political party membership.
Given that men and women tend to dene good citizenship in different ways,
issues of gender-role socialization or specic life-course effects may provide one key
to understanding the differences that exist between mens and womens support for
civic rights and duties. Scholarship on childhood and adult socialization demonstrates
that gender is ingrained early and often, and with this comes a set of overarching val-
ues and ideologies that may alter men and womens approach to civic and political
issues (Martin 1998; West and Fenstermaker 1995). Thus, if women place more impor-
tance on social citizenship, this may be based on gender role expectations that women
should be more submissive, private, rule-abiding, and compassionate, while men are
oriented towards political citizenship since their gender role expectations emphasize
public leadership roles, autonomy and self-reliance (Brownmiller 1984; Fox and
Lawless 2004; West and Zimmerman 1987; Beutel and Marini 1995). Rather than
adopting values of competition and aggression, women are pressured to develop an
ethic of caring, and this ethic predisposes women to think more in terms of the
social whole and less in terms of individual gain than men (Cross and Madson 1997).
3. Conclusion
Citizenship is a very broad concept, but key aspects of citizenship include participa-
tion in civil and political society and the willingness to accept their associated
obligations. These two related aspects of citizenship, involving beliefs about good
citizenship on the one hand and actual behavior on the other hand, are necessary
for a healthy civil society and political culture. The common thread that runs
through this discussion is the need to consider a plurality of citizenship meanings
and practices if we are to arrive at a fuller understanding of the signicance of dif-
ference and inequality in civic and political life. Our main argument is that by look-
ing beyond conventional beliefs and practices, we can see that some social groups
not only participate more, or less, in civil society and politics, but that they also
participate differently. Similarly, different social groups are not necessarily more, or
less, concerned with their obligations as citizens, but rather have different ways of
dening and realizing good citizenship in practice. In other words, rather than
focusing only on differences in citizen participation between social groups, it is
more useful to investigate the variety of gaps that exist across diverse modes of par-
ticipation and ideas about citizenship themselves.
Focusing on gender differences, it is clear that women are signicantly more
likely to participate in private modes of participation, while men are more likely
to participate in public modes. Women place more emphasis on social and civic
responsibilities compared to men, even though both groups have similar views on
the importance of their political responsibilities (Bolzendahl and Coff 2009).
These gender gaps may have important implications for political outcomes if
policy responsiveness varies in response to different modes of participation. For
example, politicians may pay more attention to the public actions in which men
are more likely to engage, while ignoring or downgrading the interests and prefer-
ences of female voters. Such outcomes may be exacerbated by the tendency of
men to be over-represented in political ofce, since research has shown that par-
liaments to which more women are elected tend to devote more resources to social
policy (Bolzendahl and Brooks 2007; Bolzendahl 2010). Group differences also
matter if they result in group-related social and political bonding. As Norris
argues (2007, 729), if horizontal segmentation into same sex-related bonding
groups has positive functions for members, it may also generate negative exter-
nalities for society as a whole by reinforcing gender divisions. Similar arguments
can be made for gaps across other social groups dened by race and ethnicity,
class, and sexual orientation. This is obviously a matter of great importance for
the functioning of democracy, the strength of civic life, and the health of society
as a whole.
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chapter 21
CIVIL SOCIETY
AND RELIGION
d onald e. miller
Religion plays an important though complicated role in a healthy civil society eco-
system, providing a location for moral debate and the articulation of competing
social visions about what is good, right and compassionate (Edwards 2009; Casanova
1994; Neuhaus 1984; Dionne and Diiulio 2000; Bellah 1970, 168192; Wuthnow 2004).
Religious groups mobilize members to protest policies they consider unjust, draw-
ing on the social capital of their members as well as their religious traditions for
justication and ideological support (Smith 1996; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2007).
Religious institutions also perform an important role in socializing children, pro-
viding them with moral values as well as inspiring images of what it means to live a
productive life (Fowler 1981). And religious organizations develop programs that
serve people in needespecially people who lack healthcare, educational resources,
and employment opportunities (Marsh 2005; Harper 1999; Elliott 2004). However,
it is also true that religion has the potential to inict great harm, especially if it
becomes an instrument of the state or an uncritical advocate for sectarian or corpo-
rate interests. For example, clergy have openly supported genocide and totalitarian
leaders, and they have justied the privileges of the social elite, who sometimes are
their patrons (Gourevitch 1999). In order for religion to contribute positively to
civil society, its members must answer to a higher power, appealing to values that
serve all of humanity and not simply the self-interest of the few.
As a human invention, religion takes many forms depending on culture and
historical circumstances (Berger 1967). Hence, given the diversity of religious expres-
sion it is difcult to generalize about the relationship between religion and civil
society. Nevertheless, there are distinct patterns that can be identied, some of
which contribute to a vibrant civil society and others that are quite destructive.
Indeed, the history of sociological theory is replete with different normative evalu-
ations of religion and its role in society. Karl Marx (Raines 2002) viewed religion as
an opiate that dulls the pain of poverty and inequality and therefore is socially
regressive because it inhibits revolutionary change. Emile Durkheim (1995) argued
that religion potentially plays an integrative role in society, premised on the view
that the objects of religious worship are the collective values of society. Max Weber
(2002) had a much more complex view of religion, seeing its potential as a social
change agent but also understanding its conservative and ideological role. Various
permutations of these three perspectives continue to be relevant today in attempts
to understand the complex interrelationship between civil society and religion.
1. Definitions of Religion
and Its Social Role
When religion is viewed as an element of civil society, the reference is typically to its
institutional form, not to private experiences of prayer, meditation, and personal spir-
ituality. Religion is often distinguished from spirituality in the following way: Religion
is an institution that evolves over time and involves specic beliefs, rituals, and orga-
nizational forms, whereas spirituality refers to the ways in which individuals experi-
ence a transcendent dimension in their liveswhat they refer to as God, a divine
presence, or an alignment with a sacred path and way of life (Johnstone 1975; James
1961). In actual practice, religion and spirituality may interrelate, with institutional
religion serving as the vehicle for mediating experiences of a transcendent or sacred
dimension. On the other hand, there are increasing numbers of individuals in Western
society who claim to be spiritual but not religious (Roof 1994; Flory and Miller 2008).
For them, religion is a personal and private experience that does not require an insti-
tutional vessel. These individuals typically view institutional religion as a corrupt and
hierarchical organizational form that impedes experiences of the sacred, reecting
practices and traditions that are irrelevant to contemporary society. In contrast,
defenders of institutional religion often respond that privatized religion is narcissistic,
contributing nothing to the common good. It is a palliative that serves the egoist need
for individual meaning, but fails to address the larger causes of human suffering.
While there is some truth to both perspectives, the dichotomy between religion
and spirituality is false, at least in healthy forms of institutional religion that contrib-
ute to civil society in creative ways (Stanczak 2006). Vibrant institutional religion
engages the spirit at both the organizational and individual levels. The founders of
the great religious traditions drew their inspiration from transcendent sources, or at
least this is how the followers of these charismatic prophets experienced them.
Likewise, when institutional religion becomes encrusted with layers of tradition and
hierarchy, reformers often discard the organizational secretions that separate indi-
viduals from primal experiences of the sacred and attempt to return to the original
civil society and religion 259
vision (Hughes 1988; Miller 1997). And when one examines the lives of religiously
motivated social transformers, as well as those individuals who live out their faith in
incredibly hard circumstancesserving the homeless, people with AIDS, and those
who are desperately poorthe thing that inevitably inspires them to act courageously
or sustains them in the daily grind is a deep spirituality that connects them to some-
thing greater than themselves (Tutu 2004; King and Carson 1998; Ganz 2009).
When religion fulls its social role in these senses, it intersects with civil society
in ve different ways. First, it provides a place where moral conversation is encour-
aged, where people can debate ideas and policies and hone their arguments about
what is right and wrong. Second, vibrant religious institutions inspire their mem-
bers to act out their convictionsthrough voting, public demonstrations, and other
political acts that embody their moral values. Third, religious institutions have a
long history of establishing schools, social service agencies, and responding to crisis
situations related to natural disasters such as earthquakes, oods, and drought.
Fourth, religious institutions provide opportunities for human community through
music, the arts, and various means of caring for one another. And fth, religious
institutions have time-honored means of dealing with rites of passage: birth,
puberty, marriage, childrearing, and death, the nal passage.
What makes religion different from secular institutions that also play some of
these roles is that religion claims a moral authority beyond the people who consti-
tute its membership. Clubs, labor unions, and other civic organizations have rituals,
creeds, and organizational structures. In this sense they resemble religious groups.
But they seldom make claims about ultimate reality, and when they do they are
accused of stepping into the realm of religion, whereas the task of religion, regard-
less of the particular tradition, is to make ultimate claims about truth, justice, and
love. Nevertheless, religion is always a treasure in earthen vessels (Gustafson 2008).
There are pedophile priests, clergy who are adulterers, and people who justify acts
of bigotry and terrorism in the name of their religion. But hopefully these acts,
these bad apples within the community, are distinguished from the ideals of the
religion, thus enabling the conversation to continue about what constitutes the
good society, the good person, or a world that is worth passing on to our children.
When these conversations do not occur internally within religion, then one may
rightly stand in judgment because at that point religion has engaged in an act of
idolatry by substituting human self-interest for transcendent values.
2. Typologies of Religion
and Civil Society Interaction
In his two-volume work on the history of Christianity, Ernst Troeltsch (1960) drew
on Max Weber (1946) to distinguish sectarian expressions of religion from what he
called church forms of Christianity. In addition, he identied mysticism as a third
sociological form. Sectarian religion makes little contribution to civil society except
as a light on the hill that exemplies utopian manifestations of human commu-
nity. In contrast, Troeltschs church type represents a form of political realism that
acknowledges human depravity and is premised on the idea that power is necessary
to accomplish certain goals, while mysticism is an individualistic expression of reli-
gion that focuses on the divine-human encounter, including ecstatic states of
consciousness.
Sectarian groups emphasis personal purity and therefore tend to withdraw
from participating in political institutions they consider corrupt. Sectarians are
typically pacists, refusing to bear arms, although they sometimes serve as medics
in the military. Sectarian groups are uncomfortable with hierarchical forms of
authority, and emphasize the individuals relationship with God. In contrast,
churchly expressions of religion understand the importance of compromise, the use
of power to achieve worthy goals, and the value of hierarchical patterns of authority.
Therefore, in contrast to the sectarian Anabaptist tradition which is pacist, the
Roman Catholic Church evolved theories that justied war under certain condi-
tions and established distinctions between the duties of the priestly class and the
laity (Bainton 1960). The mystic as an ideal type emerged within Roman Catholicism
as a safety value for those who desired to live a more pure, uncompromised life.
Mystics often separate themselves from society in monasteries and convents, seek-
ing divine illumination in the act of giving up worldly possessions and living an
unencumbered life. These three typesthe sect, the church, and the mystic
operate synergistically within society. The sect holds up utopian visions of human
possibility, the church engages with a sinful and corrupt world, and the mystic keeps
alive in pure form the transcendent element that ultimately animates religion.
A variety of different typologies have been created in response to Troeltsch and
Webers church-sect distinction (Stark and Finke 2000, 259276). For example,
Brian Wilson (1982, 89120) developed a number of sectarian subtypes, and
H. Richard Niebuhr (1951) created a widely utilized typology in his book Christ and
Culture, which was oriented around theological traditions within Christianity. In
addition, Niebuhr (1929) recognized the development of the denomination as a
sociological form that often evolves from sectarians who grow wealthyin part
because of their discipline and austere lifestyleand decide that participating in
the fruits of material culture is attractive. Today, denominations are the dominant
sociological form among Protestants, and they no longer eschew participating in
the institutions of society. In fact, evangelical denominations with sectarian roots
began to form strong lobbying groups in the 1970s and 1980sincluding the
Christian Coalition, for example, in the United Statesno longer ceding the public
square to liberal advocates of the social gospel (Vaughan 2009).
In addition, sociological studies of congregational life have produced other use-
ful typologies, such as the distinctions drawn by Roozen, McKinney, and Carroll
(1984) after studying several hundred congregations in Hartford, Connecticut. They
identied four orientations that cut across congregations from a variety of faith
traditions and grouped their missions in public life in terms of activists, citizens,
sanctuaries, and evangelists. The activist views the here and now as the main arena
of Gods redemptive work, and sees humankind as Gods agent of social transfor-
mation. Clergy are expected to be public gures, mobilizing their congregations to
political action even if this runs counter to prevailing power structures. In contrast,
congregations that emphasize the civic role of their members tend to work within
existing political and economic structures, educating their members about policy
issues and stressing the right of individual members to engage and vote with their
conscience. Congregations that operate as sanctuaries focus on the world still to
come, with worship being a time to withdraw from the world as it isnot to engage
in it. Members of evangelistic congregations believe that the path to individual and
social transformation lies through personal salvation, and so they place a great deal
of emphasis on sharing their belief system with those who are outside the fold.
While this typology is useful in identifying the various public roles of religion,
one element is common to all religions: the communal. Congregations (especially
large ones) offer divorce recovery meetings, programs for addiction counselling,
seminars on how to cope with teenage children, retirement transition classes, musi-
cal productions, and religious education from the cradle to the grave (Thumma
2007). Individuals are attracted to these congregations, not primarily because of the
political stance of the clergy or even the religious belief system of the tradition, but
because they are vibrant communities where people can socialize and nd support,
including life partners. In urban mass society, human community is often a scarce
commodity. Religious institutions therefore ll a vacuum in peoples lives.
Congregation members may be immigrants who left their extended family behind,
or they may live in neighborhoods where people scarcely greet each other. Therefore,
the neighborhood church, temple, mosque, or synagogue is a gathering place of
human caring. And as a voluntary association, one can pick and choose among a
variety of options. Gay or lesbian people can select a progressive Episcopal church
rather than a conservative Southern Baptist congregation. African Americans can
attend a black church, because this is one place where they can mix with people of
their own race. Armenians, Vietnamese, or Filipinos can choose a congregation
where they can sing and converse in the language of their home country as well as
celebrate their homelands customs and rituals (Kniss and Numrich 2007).
Many of these activities may appear to be therapeutic (Rieff 1966), but that does
not make them narcissistic, especially if there is a strong element of communal sup-
port within the group. Congregations are places that the young, old, disabled,
healthy, rich, and poor gather together, and in the liminal space of religious wor-
ship, all people are equal. It is this element of religion that many ardent atheists
seem to miss in their critique of religion. They identify religion exclusively with a set
of beliefs, many of which may seem outdated because they are anchored in tradi-
tion. They fail to see that religious institutions are gathering places where people
can experience their common humanity, and be vulnerable about their fears, anxi-
eties, defects, and strengths (Wuthnow 1996). Furthermore, the critics of religion
also frequently fail to appreciate the need of people to create identities that are
grounded in something deeper than their last consumer purchase. However, the
worst shortcoming of religious naysayers is that they fail to account for the diversity
of religion, including non-Western forms of spirituality. The goal of achieving an
egoless state of being so that one can serve humanity more effectively is a much
harder notion to critique than supernatural theories of divine intervention that
inevitably raise thorny questions related to the perennial issue of theodicy.
3. Conservatives and Liberals

While the typologies of social scientists are extremely useful, everyday distinctions
between liberals and conservatives, progressives and orthodox, and modernists and
fundamentalists also help to clarify the various ways in which religious groups relate
to civil society (Hunter 1991). Liberals, progressives, and modernists tend to look to
the future and acknowledge that religion needs to adapt to changes in culture and
society. In contrast, conservatives, orthodox, and fundamentalists usually look back
to a golden era when things were perceived to be better, less corrupt, and altogether
purer embodiments of the religious ideals of the tradition. For conservatives, the
goal is to return to this ideal state, rejecting many of the cultural elements that are
associated with modernity. In contrast, progressives of different stripes do not iden-
tify their religion with any particular set of cultural trappings, but instead seek to
create a society that both embodies the ideals and principles of the religion and
takes account of new scientic information, new technologies, and changes in sys-
tems of governance. These two orientations result in quite different agendas in civil
society. Conservatives typically focus on safeguarding institutions such as the fam-
ily; they often reject intrusion by government into the socialization of children; and
they are often nationalistic, perceiving threats to the homeland by foreign powers
and/or immigrants. In contrast, progressives typically focus on poverty, injustice,
and racismseeing these as systemic problems that require government
intervention.
While one might expect there to be substantial differences between various reli-
gious traditions, the differences within branches of a denomination or faith group
are often even greater (Ammerman 1990). For example, progressive Muslims, Jews,
Christians, and Buddhists may have much more in common with each other than
they do with conservatives within their own denomination or faith group. Likewise,
conservatives (whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim) are typically fundamental-
ists when it comes to their sacred texts, believing that God inspires every word,
while progressives from different religious traditions typically view their scriptures
as reecting cultural biases that are not identical with the central truths embodied
in the stories and sayings of the prophet(s) of the tradition. For progressives, the
challenge is to apply these principles to contemporary problems and issues.
Although opposing religious camps often demonize each other, in a vibrant

civil society this contestation of viewpoints is valuable, providing locations where
public policy can be debated and articulated with reference to clearly dened moral
and theological positions. For this reason, religious freedom is an important ele-
ment of civil society. To stie religious pluralism is to diminish the opportunity for
moral debate, which is the hallmark of democracy. Such debate ideally plays out in
ways small and largein committee meetings as well as in public forums. The obvi-
ous danger is that the contestation of religious and political views can become
uncivil, when violence in words or deeds is used to justify the ends of a religious
ideal (Bellah and Greenspahn 1987). Killing doctors who perform abortions or
innocent civilians in terrorist bombings are clearly outside the boundaries of any
appropriate civic expression of religious-based commitments.
4. Contrasting Examples
of Social Engagement
In the United States, there is a long tradition of community organizing that dates
back to the beginning of the twentieth century, although it was ignited in the 1940s
by Saul Alinsky (1989) who codied his philosophy and strategy of organizing in
1946 with the publication of Reveille for Radicals. Initially the prime audience for
organizing were members of labor unions, but beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, as
labor unions lost some of their power, many of the major organizing movements
such as the Industrial Areas Foundation and People Improving Communities
through Organizing (PICO) turned their attention to churches, where they could
nd large numbers of poor people as well as progressive people of faith who wanted
to put their faith into action (Warren 2001; Wood 2002). In contrast to the agency
model of social service, faith-based organizers followed Alinskys Iron Rule:
Never do for others what they can do for themselves (Alinsky 1989). The goal of
organizing, therefore, is to assist disenfranchised people to attain civic and political
power by identifying the sources of pain in their lives and then capitalize on their
anger by targeting specic policies or problems that require change.
These issues obviously differ from one community to another, but typical goals
in faith-based organizing have often included securing a living wage from employ-
ers, advocating for higher quality schools in low-income neighborhoods, promot-
ing the construction of affordable housing, and working to ensure safe
neighborhoods. The key methods here are to engage people in one-on-one
conversations, identify their most urgent needs, form a strong network of relation-
ships at the neighborhood and congregational levels, target a winnable piece of leg-
islation, and assemble large numbers of people at protests and rallies in order to
demonstrate their collective civic and political power.
In broad-based community organizing, networks of religious groups from dif-

ferent faith traditions put aside their dogmas in order to focus on what is common
to their traditions, most centrally a respect for people, regardless of their color,
immigration status, or wealth. Professional organizers are trained and paid, and
focus on developing leaders within the community who can carry out the ght for
social justice. Concepts such as self-interest, conict, and struggle are part of the
vocabulary of successful community organizers who work with the faith commu-
nity. They seek durable power and a place at the decision-making table, recognizing
that power is not easily shared by corporate and political elitesit must be
demanded.
Pentecostalism, on the other hand, represents a very different model of civic
engagement. It is the fastest growing religious movement in the world, with approx-
imately 500 million people identifying with a charismatic church or Pentecostal
denomination (Cox 1995; Chestnut 2003). The power that Pentecostals embrace is
the power of the Holy Spirit to transform individual lives, not political structures
(Martin 2002). Drawing on the example of Jesus disciples after his death and resur-
rection, Pentecostals believe in the gifts of the spirit: divine healing, prophecy, and
speaking in tongues. Launched in 1906 in Los Angeles in an interracial church,
Pentecostalism spread rapidly around the world, and in the 1960s and 1970s the
charismatic renewal movement also transformed a number of mainline Protestant
and Roman Catholic churches, inspiring contemporary forms of worship and an
embrace of the presence of the Holy Spirit (Robeck 2006).
Based on ve years of research among Pentecostal and charismatic congrega-
tions in twenty countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the former Soviet
Union, Miller and Yamamori (2007) show that, although many of these churches
are sectarian in terms of their worldly engagement, there is also an emerging move-
ment of socially engaged Pentecostal congregations, and the range of programs they
operate is substantial, including: mercy ministries (providing food, clothing, shel-
ter); emergency services (responding to oods, famine, earthquakes); education
programs (providing day care, schools, tuition assistance); counseling services
(helping with addiction, divorce, depression); medical assistance (establishing
health clinics, dental clinics, psychological services); economic development proj-
ects (microloan programs, job training, affordable housing); programs in the arts
(training in music, dance, drama); and policy change activities (opposing corrup-
tion, monitoring elections, and supporting human rights).
Among Pentecostals and charismatic Christians, there are also a number of
prosperity gospel churches that emphasize health and wealthoften with a magi-
cal twist that is mixed with tithes and offerings to the church itself (Gifford 2004).
These congregations t Karl Marxs classication of religion as an opiate for the
poor (Anderson 1979), although faith healing and ecstatic religious experience
sometimes exist side by side with assistance programs for those in need (Miller and
Yamamori 2007). In contrast to faith-based organizing or liberation theology (which
sometimes go hand in hand), socially engaged Pentecostal and charismatic
congregations are more likely to address peoples needs one by one rather than con-
fronting the systemic causes of poverty or human suffering. Hence, many socially
engaged congregations run medical clinics, schools, feeding programs, and counsel-
ing services. However, only a few address political corruption in society or make
demands for equitable social provision at the national level. Their strategy is to cre-
ate an alternative social safety network rather than reform government policy. In
this regard, Pentecostalism in the twenty-rst century echoes its sectarian origins at
the beginning of the twentieth century.
While critics from the Left may critique Pentecostalism for its individualistic
approach to addressing social change, it is important to acknowledge the warm and
caring relationships that exist within these congregations. Many of the fastest grow-
ing Pentecostal churches cope with their size by having cell groups that meet in
members homes, assuming responsibility for the care and nurture of their partici-
pants. Every congregation is lled with stories of conversion where husbands
become less abusive and better fathers because they gave up drinking, gambling,
and womanizing (Bomann 1999). In addition to informal means of caring for con-
gregation members, many of these churches have compassion ministries that extend
to the wider community. Central to the cell groups and combined gatherings is
ecstatic worship, an experience that both comforts and inspires. Hence, it would be
inappropriate to dismiss Pentecostal religion as irrelevant to civil society simply
because it does not address social issues at a systemic level. For tens of millions of
people, their church is their most important experience of community, and it is
within the fold of religion that they raise their children, engage in volunteer work,
and seek to make the world a better place.
Religion and civil society interact at the para-church, nongovernmental organi-
zation (NGO), and religious nonprot levels as well as at the congregational level
(Flanigan 2009). For example, many congregations develop separate nonprot
organizations in order to enable them to bridge beyond their own faith community
as they develop social outreach programs. Likewise, there are dozens of large reli-
gious NGOs, such as World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, Lutheran Social Services,
Adventist Relief and Development Agency, Food for the Hungry, and Compassion
International that operate internationally (Lindenberg and Bryant 2001). Some of
these organizations are extremely large and comprehensive, such as World Vision,
which operates in a hundred different countries and has a budget exceeding $2 bil-
lion per annum. Other faith-based NGOs are small-scale operations that run after
school programs, homeless shelters, and community development programs.
Several years ago I interviewed the leadership of most of the religious NGOs in
the Republic of Armenia. Their programs resembled very closely the list described
in the previous section on Pentecostalism, ranging from earthquake relief efforts to
economic development, education, human rights advocacy, character development,
and programs related to the arts. What surprised me was the range of religiosity in
these religious NGOs. For example, there were NGOs that had a strong conver-
sionist orientation with religion saturating all aspects of their work, and there were
religious NGOs that bore the name of a denomination but otherwise were thor-
oughly secular. Some religious NGOs were highly ecumenical and others were
focused exclusively on their own members. In addition, there was a substantial
range of leadership styles; some depended almost exclusively on the charisma of the
founder and others were bureaucratic, with senior personnel shifts barely causing a
ripple in service delivery. While some of these NGOs were supported by the chari-
table contributions of their own constituencies, many of the groups were also part-
nering with external donor organizations such as the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), the Department for International Development
(DFID) from the United Kingdom, and others, serving as vehicles for the delivery of
millions of dollars of relief, development, and medical aid.
Religious NGOs play an important role in promoting different forms of
social ties, though the balance between what Robert Putnam (2000) calls bond-
ing and bridging social capital changes from one context to another, produc-
ing broader civic effects that are subject to conicting interpretations (Flanigan
2009; Lichterman 2005). When religious NGOs make links outside their denomi-
nations and foster an open and self-critical culture, they can nurture bridging
social capital that mitigates against intercommunal violence and strengthens
cross-community engagementby partnering, for example, on development
projects at the village level with people who otherwise would not associate with
one another, such as Catholics working with Protestants or Muslims working
with Hindus ( Varshney 2003). Key points of demarcation in these collaborations
lie between projects that focus on relief versus those that emphasis development,
and whether faith-based interventions create dependency or promote self-suf-
ciency. These distinctions are important in analyzing the relationship between
religion and civil society in the following ways. If religious NGOs are building
bonds of trust and cooperation between different religious and social groups,
and if they are also contributing to self-sufciency, then they serve an important
social function. On the other hand, if they are creating long-term dependency
and are perpetuating social inequities, then they may have a detrimental effect.
5. Conclusion
To summarize, religion is potentially part of a healthy associational ecosystem in
societies where religious freedom is guaranteed and diverse religious views are
allowed expression. In its healthy forms it stands against bigotry, intolerance, and
the demonization of other groups and people. In its unhealthy forms, religion uti-
lizes bonding social capital to create strong forms of internal community at the
expense of pursuing the common good. At the root of all forms of healthy religion
are love, compassion, and a concern for social justice (Edwards and Post 2008). On
the other hand, when religion is a surrogate of the state or the market, it loses its
ability to provide prophetic judgment, and some of religions most unique

qualitiessuch as mercy, forgiveness, and the promise of hopeare ignored.
Therefore, healthy religion must always answer to a higher power if it is to perform
its unique social role.
Religious institutions bring many assets to civil society. They have physical
space, leadership, volunteers, and material resources, such as equipment and money.
They are able to mobilize people around important social policy issues. They pro-
vide forums for debating as well as articulating the moral basis for civic responsibil-
ity. They also may attempt to ll a gap in the social safety net when government
response is inadequate. And, on occasion, they create innovative programs that
serve as models for social reform. This is the social dimension of religion. However,
at the heart of all vibrant religion is worship. It is in periods of prayer, reection,
teaching, and preaching that people are internally renewed and sometimes inspired
to undertake heroic acts of social transformation. When social engagement and
worship lose their creative tensionfailing to cross-fertilize each otherthen reli-
gion becomes vapid and uninspiring.
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chapter 22
CIVIL SOCIETY AND

SPIRITUALITY
claudia horwitz
While there are numerous impulses that inspire citizens to take collective action on
the issues that concern them, spirituality mayparadoxicallybe one of the most
prevalent but least understood. A spiritually driven life may take formal shape
through civic associations, but more often than not, it is expressed informally
through a broad range of activities that take place in civil society and through civil
society as the public sphere. The gifts of a spiritual path enable people to be more
effective agents of change in countless ways, from improving the culture of civil
society associations to transforming the nature of life in the public sphere. Spirituality
lies at the core of what makes civil society possible. It strengthens the organizations
that construct it, permeates the arenas that sustain it, and inspires the search for
civil society itself. This chapter explores the neglected terrain of spirituality and civil
society and argues that the spiritual character of much civil society action should be
placed at the center of the analysis.
Because spirituality is understood, and misunderstood, in many different ways,
the chapter opens by dening the terms of this debate and analyzing the linkages
that connect spirituality to external or social action. Central to these linkages is a
new relationship to collective suffering, a relationship that is explored in section 2.
Section 3 considers the resources that spirituality provides to citizens and to activ-
ists so that they can be more effective in their civic activities in a whole variety of
ways, both in associational life (section 4) and in their interactions in the public
sphere (section 5). For example, spirituality helps citizens to confront their differ-
ences more successfully, and to build bridges across their identities. In these and
other ways, spirituality helps citizens to create the good society together, which is
the subject of the concluding section of the chapter. In essence, I maintain that the
civil society and spirituality 271
life of the spirit is a search for civil society, by civil society, and through civil society
in ways that advance greater progress than would otherwise be likely.
1. What is Spirituality?
The word spirituality conjures up any number of denitions, images, and apprais-
als. In this chapter spirituality is understood as a doorway to the sacred, a response
to internal suffering, and a quest for meaning that is accompanied by daily decisions
to live in accordance with that search. Spirituality provides a lens through which
people examine and navigate their most dening and complicated relationships: to
each other, to themselves, and to the ineffable. In this sense, spirituality constitutes
the more personal dimension of faith. For some, it is expressed through regular
rituals that bring balance to a hectic lifestyle or healing from a crisis. For others, it
is the alignment with particular teachings that cultivates the capacity for compas-
sion or denes a path to wisdom.
In the way that it is understood in post-modern Western cultures, spirituality
differs from religion in that it is less constrained, less beholden to a set of rules and
traditions, and more closely aligned with the internal landscape of human experi-
ence. Religion gives rise to particular external expressions of text and theology,
intrinsically located in communal realities. For centuries, religious institutions have
anchored a sense of social mission for their followers, but over the last ve decades
rising skepticism about authority has led to a decline in trust in large institu-
tions, be they from government, corporations, or organized religion. This, in
turn, has created a strong momentum towards spiritual experimentation and
self-determination. A number of signicant impacts of this trend were reported
by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in 2008 (Pew Forum 2008), a sur-
vey of 35,000 adults in the United States which reported that religious afliation is
both very diverse and extremely uid. More than 28 percent of adults have left their
faith of origin, and the same proportion of young adults aged 1829 years are unaf-
liated with any particular religious path. More and more people are exploring
alternative practices outside of the tradition in which they were raised, and often
across different religious and spiritual traditions. Anecdotal evidence from the pages
of any major newspaper eshes out this story: Jews who are meditating, Christians
who are practicing earth-based spirituality, Catholics who are leading the Su
Dances of Universal Peace, and African-Americans who were raised in the black
church and are now immersed in the Yoruba traditions of West Africa.
Frequently, spiritual experience is sought and embraced as a way of enlivening
ones relationship to reality, and specically of confronting the layers of separation
from ones ancestors, from the earth, and from our true human naturethat
result from the conditioning imposed by entrenched patterns in families, societies,
and cultures. Regular engagement in spiritual life holds the promise of wearing
away the disconnection and suffering that results from separation of these kinds.
Spirituality is often described as the experience of connectedness, a feeling of one-
ness where the separation between human beings dissolves. Swami Kripalu, who
inspired the Kripalu yoga tradition, described it as a wave in love with the sea
(Mundhal 2008). Over time, new habits of understanding and contentment can take
root, and the spontaneous and loving nature of the Self shines through. But funda-
mentally, spirituality is also about freedom, the freedom to act in new ways once
liberated from the constraints of inherited patterns of thought and action. It is this
quality that makes spirituality such a compelling resource for the future of civil
society.
2. A New Relationship to Collective

Suffering
In its current form, this search for meaning, fulllment, and happiness is a relatively
new phenomenon. As more people undertake their own conscious pursuit of tran-
scendent wisdom, there is an implicit assumption that this wisdom, the search itself,
or both together bring with them new levels of understanding and self-actualiza-
tion. Postmodern culture is characterized by signicantly heightened levels of alert
and anxiety, caused by economic insecurity, ongoing threats of terrorism (real and
perceived), environmental calamity, or simply the ever-quickening pace of life. In
this context it is not surprising that many people have sought out practices that
promise the potential of inner peace and an altogether calmer existence. When
placed in the context of work for social change, this spiritual yearning takes on a
new dimension and urgency. In their efforts to bring about social transformation,
civil society activists, by denition, work in aggregate, and often experience intensi-
ed levels of the anger, grief, and fear that are mirrored in wider society. The result-
ing stresses and strains mean that leaders and their organizations do not always
function with the level of excellence necessary to achieve a broader impact.
One potent remedy to this situationthe integration of spirituality and social
activismhas blossomed over the past ten years. Civil society leaders and other
practitioners are studying ancient wisdom, developing spiritual practices, and plac-
ing these traditions in the context of their community and global responsibilities
where they add value and strength to the work at hand. For these activists, spiritual-
ity is both an individual and a collective enterprise, and it is inextricably linked to
justice. In the face of hard realities, many are envisioning new forms of organization
and organizing. As a result, they are creating new approaches to leadership and col-
laboration that have the potential to strengthen social movements over time and
increase their impact on societys most entrenched problems. An emphasis on inner
work does not mean avoiding, denying or transcending external difculties. Rather,
the spiritual path serves as a way of turning towards societys most pressing chal-
lenges with a willingness to see, to feel, and ultimately to act from a place of whole-
ness. At its best, spiritual activism harnesses the passion that arises from witnessing
the worlds suffering, and redirects it in more effective ways.
The gradual transformation that is occurring in many voluntary associations is
good news for civil society and the public sphere. This shift is heartening because
engagement in civil society requires a capacity to turn towards suffering in the form
of fear, sadness, and anger, over and over again. Without this capacity, the pull
towards denial or demonization of the other usually proves to be too great. The
United States sees occasional national expressions of grief (for example, after the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001), outrage (such as disgust after Hurricane
Katrina), and pity (including the response to the 2004 tsunami and more recent
earthquakes in China and Haiti). But society as a whole is not very adept when it
comes to embracing suffering and recognizing the impact of individual and collec-
tive decisions. As Parker Palmer notes, Spirituality is not primarily about values
and ethics, nor about exhortations to do right or live well. The spiritual traditions
are primarily about reality. The spiritual traditions are an effort to penetrate the
illusions of the external world and to name its underlying truthwhat it is, how it
emerges, and how we relate to it (1999, 26).
Many ancient spiritual texts embody this wisdom. The yoga sutras collected by
Patanjali in the rst century b.c.e., for example, describe ve roots of suffering: igno-
rance, ego, greed, aversion, and fear (Satchidananda 1990) It is easy to see how these
states of mind obscure the capacity for clarity and discrimination and instead become
a source of dissatisfaction. In the second sutra, Patanjali describes the benets of the
spiritual path as stilling the uctuations of the mind so that the Self can abide in its
true nature. In other words, in their fullest expression, spiritual practices enable peo-
ple to weaken the roots of suffering that take shape in the mind and to live in increas-
ing states of freedom. Greater self-consciousness illuminates the ve hindrances
described by Patanjali so that they are visible, and in this way they become a messen-
ger rather than an obstacle. With consistent effort, the practitioner develops the power
of the witness, a presence that can see clearly without identifying with what is being
seen. As the veil of illusion is pierced, the roots of suffering have less power to direct
our actions. In this way, distress, crisis, fear, sadness, and grief can serve as an impetus
to discover truth; and discomfort becomes a springboard to greater understanding.
In its fullest expression, spiritual practice sublimates the ego because it reveals
the nature of impermanence and the inevitability of change. Over time, these prac-
tices strengthen ones capacity to be responsive rather than reactive and to rest in
the unknown. It is clear that people want relief from their own suffering. Eastern
traditions of meditation and yoga have been packaged in terms of stress relief and
have become commonplace, not just in studios but in hospitals, prisons and work-
places. Chinese herbs can be purchased at the mall. Accessibility is good, but we
privatize and commodify vulnerability and healing at our peril. If we hope for more
than mere survival in close proximity to one another, then we need new, collective
ways of turning towards suffering. This is not a comfortable task.
In the words of Sister Joan Chittister, the question is how to make private spiri-
tuality the stuff of public leaven in a world ercely private and dangerously public
at the same time; how to end our public crucixions while we say our private
prayers. The fact is that simple spiritualities of creed and community and co-
operation are obviously no longer enough. We need now, surely, a spirituality of
contemplative co-creation. (2000) When confusion or pain are encountered, the
tendency is to look for an escape route, a way to avoid feeling unhappiness, fear or
anger. The other, more revolutionary choice is to experience whatever arises, to sim-
ply be with what is. This is a profound teaching: to surrender to the totality of the
moment, whether it is grief over an act of senseless violence or anger with outdated
public policies. Instead of meeting crisis with ght or ight, we can nd an intel-
ligent and expansive response that points us towards collective liberation.
Individuals develop habits and patterns based on cultural legacies, family histo-
ries, and personal experience. When these habits are triggered by a negative event,
an opportunity is presented to observe conditioned patterns like these; and over
time, they can be weakened through greater exposure, awareness and compassion.
Twenty-rst century life is replete with conditioned patterns formed around oppres-
sion, violence and injustice. Spiritual wisdom teaches that it is possible to reveal
these patterns in societyfor example, in how wealth is distributed, how children
are educated, and how resources are used and producedin a way that allows for
greater awareness and compassion. Instead of shame or guilt, suffering becomes a
doorway to more effective understanding and action.
But how does this occur? In the work of Stone Circles, for example,1 a civil soci-
ety group based in North Carolina, individuals are invited to recall a recent incident
of collective suffering, reconnect with the sensory details involved, and sculpt them
into a snapshot of the event such as a confrontation between authority and a group
of oppressed people, a meeting that disintegrates into chaos, or the collapse of a
coalition. When asked to make one change that would have catalyzed a greater sense
of freedom in the context of these experiences, the answers range from the subtle to
the obviousa nger pointed in someones face that suddenly drops to the ground,
hands clenched in a st that gradually begin to open, or a gure that moves towards
engagement with those on the other side of the fence. These shifts communicate
clues about what it means to turn towards suffering in new ways, for example:
Creating a bridge between two opposing entities
Assuming a posture of neutrality to diffuse a charged situation
Changing ones vantage point in order to see who else is suffering
Eliciting an expression of pain that has been hidden
Inviting others to join in collective action
Risking engagement in a hostile climate
And strengthening the bonds of mutual solidarity
People are more likely to choose these behaviors when they stand strong in their
own power. When something difcult arises and causes suffering on the individual
level, there is often a fear that it will last forever, even if intellectually this is clearly
not the case, and the pull to denial or avoidance becomes too strong to resist. The
same is true on the collective level. But instead of distracting oneself from the feel-
ings or sensations that arise, there is always an option to stay present in the experi-
ence and to witness to the discomfort it creates. The experience is allowed to unfold,
instead of always trying to control it. As a result, profound insights can be generated
about the path to success.
3. Strengthening Associational Life

In some ways, it should come as no surprise that civil society activists are drawn
to the benets of spiritual practice. The pressure on workers on the front lines of
the struggle for social justice is often very great. Many come to their work in
response to the brokenness and suffering they have experienced or witnessed: the
realities of economic injustice, racism and oppression, planetary degradation,
and violence in any number of its forms. Close proximity to injustice provokes a
reaction that can deepen their suffering in expressions of rage, grief, and frustra-
tion. People bind together based on shared commitment and shared anger; and
for a while at least, occasional success and urgency are enough to sustain the work.
But too many activists forsake personal well-being, and the culture of activism
lends itself to addiction, illness, or exhaustion. Left unattended, these experiences
can become a poison for body, mind, and soul, corrupting clarity, strategy, and
tactics, and limiting the time that can be sustained in the eld. Many civil society
organizations struggle to survive, only to discover that their behavior is exacer-
bating the effects of burnout on their staff or members. The slow deterioration of
physical, emotional, and mental health may go undetected for a time as practitio-
ners inhabit a dangerous irony: complete dedication to external commitment,
with virtually no awareness of how they are suffering themselves. Wake-up calls
may come in any number of forms, from a crisis of physical health to the end of a
signicant relationship.
These personal trials arise in the context of complex and under-resourced work
environments. Leaders of civil society institutions are vulnerable to a range of chal-
lenges: the tensions that arise between fullling their mission and securing the
resources the organization needs to survive; balancing the needs of multiple con-
stituencies and stakeholders; ensuring excellence in program delivery and evalua-
tion; and navigating strategy and tactics in a rapidly changing world. A survey by
CompassPoint of over 1,000 nonprot leaders in the United States articulates the
toll imposed by these challenges (Peters and Wolfred 2001, 34, 24):
Fewer than half the executive directors in the sample plan to take on
another position at the same level in the future; in most cases, executive
directors stay an average of three to ve years in their positions.
Finding meaning and contributing to others were ranked highest in

terms of the motivation for serving as leaders of nonprot organizations.
The most signicant negative elements cited by respondents included high
levels of stress and long hours, the anxiety caused by scal worries and
fundraising, the challenges of managing staff, and high staff turnover, all of
which create an atmosphere of scarcity.
In the same year, a study by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society (Duerr
2002) surveyed seventy-nine leaders representing a broad cross-section of nonprot
and other civil society organizations and revealed a similar range of challenges:
burnout, loss of perspective, lack of funding and appreciation, working from a place
of self-righteousness and excessive anger, fears of replicating one system of injustice
with another, and operating within larger cultural assumptions about busyness,
materialism, product orientation, and individualism.
Nicole Lee of the Urban Peace Movement in Oakland, California once put it to
me this way: Ive been doing community organizing for eleven years and there are
lots of us in the movement who are not sure about our effectiveness. Were having
epiphanies about where power really comes from and the relationship between
other parts of our humanity and movement work. Were at different places with the
conversation but there is a collective element. Thats encouraging.2
In his essay on spiritual leadership, James Ritscher asserts that only an orga-
nization that is well grounded in its spiritual nature has the will and the strength
to survive (2005, 69). Increasingly, younger civil society activists value the legacy
of those from previous generations, but are reluctant to inherit the tradition of
burnout that pervades the social movements they are beginning to lead. Many
recognize the need to build stronger organizations from the inside out, because
healthy and honest collectivities are the basis of everything civil society groups
accomplish. In order to sustain social justice work and increase its effectiveness on
the ground, the culture of organizations has to be transformed to reect the values
that activists are working to amplify in the wider world, including trust, compas-
sion, equity, and love.
The Center for Contemplative Mind in Societys research also documented the
impact of closer ties between inner awareness and work for social justice. Qualitative
analysis identied several ways in which spiritual practices contribute to greater
efcacy in social change, more sustainability for the long haul, the ability to process
difcult emotions in constructive ways, and success in shifting entrenched power
dynamics and power structures. The study was one of the rst to reveal how activ-
ists are using spiritual practices to integrate personal with social transformation. As
the connection between reective individuals, healthy organizations and effective
social movements has become clearer (though mirroring the lessons of an earlier
generation of activism around civil and womens rights), new resources have been
developed to meet their needs. Numerous organizations are resourcing civil society
activists through education, training, retreats and materials. Leadership develop-
ment programs provide intensive training that includes components on personal
ecology and mastery, and what was largely a unrelated sprinkling of disparate efforts
around the United States in the 1990s has become a more cohesive, connected net-
work that is leveraging its power in a number of a large-scale collaborations.
More and more activists are experiencing rsthand the transformative power of
combining the spiritual practices with the work they do in the world (Zimmerman
et al. 2010). Imagine a community organizer participating in a training that values
spiritual wisdom and incorporates the relevant practices. He arrives fresh from the
most recent round of battles to protect undocumented farm workers. He is angry at
the system, at the landowners, and even at some other immigrant rights leaders
because they are prioritizing college access over farm worker health issues. During a
guided meditation on the nature of leadership challenges, he sits with his anger and
follows it to the root: a deep caring for his constituents. In a later session, he connects
with two other organizers in a structured dialogue on strategy development. They
discuss priorities, tradeoffs, and tough decisions. He is able to hold his current strug-
gles in a larger and longer-term context, and gain insights into the choices other
leaders in the movement are making. The evening closes with a session on mindful-
ness meditation. He experiences a deep level of compassion, rst for the farm work-
ers and their families, then for the people in his organization and other movement
allies, and then, although perhaps eetingly, for the landowners themselves. He
returns to his work after the training with renewed energy and openness.
This is not to claim that spiritual practices automatically inspire holistic or
inclusive thinking. If they did, the world would be different. If inner work is under-
taken in isolation from the reective mirror provided by real communities, the
spiritual path merely bolsters individualism. The path becomes too self-referential,
and the opportunity to contribute to the common good is lost. It is precisely the
commitment to a world beyond oneself that saves spiritual practice from its poten-
tial narcissism. The web of interdependence necessitates great care and responsibil-
ity. As one moves into an awareness of interconnectedness, personal needs move
out of the center of the universe. Over time, new structures, institutions, and orga-
nizations develop that reect this shift. For activists, the fruits of a spiritual life
inspire a desire to share their experience more widely; in the conviction that human
beings come to realize their full potential in relationship with others. Indeed, all
social movements have demonstrated the universal truth that individual freedom is
not just dependent upon collective freedom, they are inextricably linked together.
4. Navigating the Tensions

of the Public Sphere
As society becomes more pluralistic, ignoring lines of difference is no longer a via-
ble option. People must negotiate their differences in ways for which they have not
adequately been prepared. The oft-learned tendency is to choose one side and
demonize the other. Dynamic tensions arise which, when navigated poorly, dimin-
ish efforts at social change and fray the social fabric still further. When activists
operate from fear, mistrust, anxiety, or anger, distinctions and tensions are magni-
ed. When addressed skillfully, however, these tensions present an opportunity to
look at duality in a different way. When activists operate from curiosity or compas-
sion, these distinctions become the raw material that can assist in forging unlikely
partnerships and a transcendent pluralistic narrative of human liberation through
the life of the public sphere.
This shift entails a radical change in the dynamics between dominant and sub-
ordinate groups, or the mainstream and the margins. Jean Baker Miller (1991, 183)
identies the following ve characteristics of a dominant group: they act destruc-
tively to subordinate groups; they restrict subordinate groups range of action; they
discourage the subordinate groups full expression of their experiences; they char-
acterize subordinates falsely; and they describe everything as the way it should be.
The psychologist and activist Arthur Mindell (1995) uses the terms mainstream
and margin to describe a similar framework and this has been further expanded
upon by Training for Change.3 The mainstream exhibits the qualities, behaviors,
and values that are more overtly recognized and supported, whether in an organiza-
tion, a community, or society at large. The margin is made up of the qualities and
behaviors that are pushed to the periphery and denied equal power. The main-
stream uses its power to frame the discourse, set the tone and the terms of engage-
ment, and dene acceptable language, and these actions reinforce the power it
already has.
The premise here is that mainstreams cannot grow or evolve without the wis-
dom that comes from the margin, and that mainstreams tend to be ignorant of
their own behavior. This is clear when observing movements for social change,
most of which emerge from the margin. And no matter how homogeneous or
united an organization or community believes itself to be, a careful examination
will show that some of its members or characteristics have been marginalized. A
group that believes that it is mostly progressive politically has some members with
more moderate or conservative views. An organization that uses email for internal
communication has some staff members who like to talk things out face-to-face.
Mainstream power is often hidden behind unexpressed assumptions about how
everyone in a group should act, but mainstreams grow through becoming aware
of, and then renegotiating, their relationships with the margins. Groups in which
mainstreams refuse to do this eventually die. Groups and societies grow most
robustly at their edges.
Spiritual practices reveal the possibility of a union of oppositesbetween
movement and stillness, expansion and contraction, will and surrender, right
and wrong. The intimate relationship that is inherent in every duality is revealed.
In the presence of this intimacy, it becomes easier to deal with complexity, to
hold two seemingly conicting ideas in ones mind at the same time. Spiritual
activism offers a middle way between ght and ight; the two responses that
are instinctual, especially in times of challenge, crisis, or stress. Because of these
advantages, spirituality can be of enormous assistance to the health and func-

tioning of public spheres.
5. Conclusion: Spirituality and the

Good Society
From ancient history through to the social movements of today, we nd compelling
examples of how spiritual conviction and consciousness can blossom into a com-
pelling vision for the future of humankind. Spiritual wisdom sees beyond the men-
tality of us versus them to engage with the potential of commonality and radical
equality. It has great potential to anchor visions of the good society in a commit-
ment to concrete ethics and new forms of behavior, and to guide the actions of civil
society groups as they labor to bring these visions to fruition.
To take but one example, ahimsa, the Sanskrit word for nonviolence, dened
a new approach to conict and liberation from colonial rule in India. In The
Nonviolent Revolution, Nathanial Altman (1988) describes it thus: Instead of caus-
ing fear, the soldier of ahimsa seeks to instill condence and trust. In place of
antagonism, the spiritual warrior works to bring about communication and
understanding. As opposed to the defensiveness and bullying of the traditional sol-
dier, the soldier of ahimsa is protected by humility and vulnerability. In place of
contempt for the enemy, the soldier of ahimsa offers goodwill and respect. In simi-
lar fashion, Martin Luther King, Jr. (1957) and other civil rights leaders placed love
squarely at the center of nonviolent resistance, dening it as a refusal to hate and
perhaps even more importantly, having sense enough to cut off the chain of hate
completely. Kings philosophy of the love that does justice is perhaps the best-elab-
orated framework of integrated social change of the kind that has been explored in
this chapter. Built around a spirituality of cultivating unconditional or universal love
for all human beings, King described his life mission as the translation of love into
justice structures, encompassing action at both the personal and the structural levels
to create mutually reinforcing cycles of change that would spiral outwards to create
what he called the beloved communitythe ultimate synthesis of personal and
social transformation (Edwards and Post 2009, 6). Jane Stembridge, one of the rst
white organizers to work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
expressed it like this: Finally, it all boils down to human relationship . . . It is the ques-
tion of whether I shall go on living in isolation or whether there shall be a we. The
student movement is not a cause . . . it is a collision between this one person and that
one person. It is I am going to sit beside you . . . Love alone is radical (Zinn 2002, 7)
Because unconditional love must consider the equal and general welfare of the
whole, those who follow this path must also confront any factor that stands in the
way of realizing the rights and dignity of every human beingwhether rooted in
personal prejudice and selshness, or locked into the systems and structures of
power that characterize all contemporary societies.
As Edwards and Post (2009, 7) put it: Consider the volunteer working in New
Orleans after Hurricane Katrina whose constant efforts, along with those of count-
less others, can achieve only a very partial alleviation of immense suffering. They
inevitably begin to ask why it is that support and resources are not available from
the corridors of power, and what forces are responsible for such neglect. This exam-
ple shows how justice is implicit in love, and how justice-seeking is loves modula-
tion or expression. Doing unto others does require the irreplaceable face-to-face
interpersonal works of love, but it also requires the courage to confront larger, sys-
temic unfairness. . . . Love that does not descend into the struggle for justice is
incomplete, if not irrelevant. It is the same phenomenon that workers from the
Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee encountered in the Mississippi
Delta four decades earlier, and that so moved Gandhi thirty years before.
A spiritually based activism makes all of this more than well-worn history or
convincing theory. At its best, a dedication to the spiritual life ushers in a new sense
of spaciousness that encourages people to take on more responsibility for their
actions and begin to choose new responses to old and familiar questions. As these
attributes continue to manifest in practice, activists nd themselves grounded in an
increased self-awareness, a place of readiness, and openness to change. They begin
to know what is right in any given moment in time, and to trust that wisdom,
whether it comes from within or from outside. Solutions can emerge at any time
because the ground has been well prepared. The spiritual path to civil society does
not generate ready-made answers to the deep-rooted and intractable problems of
economic and social life, codied according to the conventional logics of Left or
Right, or Jewish, Muslim, or Christian. Instead, it provides a different set of motiva-
tions from which alternatives can grow, eventually demonstrating how politics, eco-
nomics, social relationships, and organizational effectiveness can be transformed
through a radically different rationality. Marrying a rich inner life dedicated to the
cultivation of loving kindness and compassion with the practice of new forms of
politics, economics and public policy is the key to social transformation.
NOTES
1. See www.stonecircles.org.
2. Personal conversation with the author.
3. See www.trainingforchange.org.
REFERENCES
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California.
Dass, R., and Bush, M. 1991. Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service.
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Duerr, M. 2002. Inviting the World to Tranform: Nourishing Social Justice Work with
Contemplative Practice. Northampton, Mass: The Center for Contemplative Mind in
Society.
Edwards, M., and Post, S. 2009. The Love that Does Justice: Spiritual Activism in Dialogue
with Social Science. Cleveland, Ohio: Unlimited Love Press.
Horwitz, C. 2002. The Spiritual Activist: Practices to Transform Your Life, Your Work and
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Womens Growth in Connection: Writings from the Stone Center. New York: Guilford
Press, 18195.
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University of St. Thomas Law Journal vol. 1 (1):10227.
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Rutgers University Press.
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Island, B.C.: New Society Publishers.
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part v
THE SPACES OF CIVIL

SOCIETY
chapter 23
CIVIL SOCIETY
AND GOVERNMENT
nancy l. rosenblum
charles h. t. lesch
Civil society and government have their own conceptual and institutional histo-
ries, and each of these histories has a foot in both political theory and social and
political developments. New institutions, shifting boundaries, and novel interpen-
etrations of civil society and government are a constant, but sometimes these
changes amount to transformative moments. One such moment came when per-
ceptions of civil society shifted from negative to universally positive, and civil soci-
ety came to be identied as a separate sphere from the economy and from
government, cast as the terrain of genuine moral and social life. As a result, civil
society often escapes the critical analyses that have been leveled at government. Civil
society, not the state, is the bastion of utopianism in political thought today. This
chapter surveys the shifting boundaries of civil society-government relations and
underscores the potentially transformative move towards partnerships that reach
into areas that were previously marked out as separate terrains.
1. Boundaries
Discussions of civil society and government pose difficult questions of bound-
ary definition and boundary crossing. Assigning substantive purposes, desig-
nating the characteristics of their institutions, and identifying their shifting
286 the spaces of civil society
boundaries pose many analytic challenges. Moreover, locating the boundaries

between civil society and government inevitably reflects moral norms and
political ideology, and has implications for law and public policy. In addressing
these questions, we adopt the spatial metaphors that have become indispensable
to thinking on this subject.
Viewed from the perspective of government, the state is the encompassing
sphere, the higher ground, and the controlling institution. Government is the
inclusive, putative authorized voice of citizens, and bears principal responsibility
for activities that serve common purposes. By means of law and public policy,
government creates the institutional framework, the space in which the groups
and associations of civil society take shape and carry out their activities.
Government assigns the elements of civil society legal status, rights, and respon-
sibilities; it outlaws certain groups and criminalizes certain activities. Public law
sets the terms of cooperation and the permissible terms of conict within and
between these groups and associations. By means of coercion and incentives,
government cultivates, constrains, regulates, directs, and supports the entire
range of institutions and associations that comprise social life. From this per-
spective, government is prior to civil society, and the elements of civil society
are secondary or intermediate associations. In one formulation, government
represents the social union of social unions (Rawls 1993, 322). As such, govern-
ment must insure that the partial social unions of civil society are congruent
with, or not dangerously in opposition to, the requirements of stable democracy,
and towards that end enforce equal protection of the law and due process over
and sometimes against civil society groups. From this perspective, the obliga-
tions of citizenship outweigh the obligations of association membership, and
one task of government is to cultivate public, democratic norms and a commit-
ment to public purposes. At the same time, in recognition of the fact that indi-
viduals and groups nd their meaning in associations, and on the understanding
that for some people membership has priority over citizenship, government
should also attempt to minimize conicts between the obligations of citizenship
and the demands of membership, in particular the demands of religious faith
(Rosenblum 2000).
Viewed from the perspective of civil society, associational life encompasses
activities and commitments as various as are human needs and imaginations,
extending far beyond the business of government and citizenship: our interests,
convictions, cultural, religious and sexual identities, status, salvation, exhibitions of
competence, exhilarating rivalries are played out in these partial associations (Post
and Rosenblum 2002, 15; 3). From the perspective of members, these groups bear a
resemblance to government insofar as they are jurisgenerative. Whether they are
conceived as voluntary associations or as ascriptive religious, cultural, or ethnic
groups, they impose laws and obligations, assign members rights and benets,
decide on collective purposes, and do so by instituting their own structures of
authority and forms of internal governance. Unlike government, however, associa-
tions are plural, partial, and particularist, and participation in these groups and
civil society and government 287
associations contrasts with singular democratic citizenship. They are partial in the
sense that their membership is not inclusive, which is one reason why civil society is
a terrain not only of myriad social differences but also of myriad inequalities. They
are partial too in the sense that groups and associations do not occupy every moment
or aspect of members lives; men and women are also producers and consumers in
the economy, family members, political actors, and citizens. Finally, associations are
partial in that individuals typically belong to more than one group. They form mul-
tiple, diverse attachments over the course of a lifetime. Indeed, the possibility of
shifting involvements and the experience of pluralism is a dening characteris-
tic of life in civil society (Rosenblum 1998; Galston 2002).
This brief conceptual account brings us to the inescapable boundary ques-
tion: what constraints should government impose on the formation, internal life,
and activities of groups and associations, and what limits should it set to the
authority that groups exercise over their own members and outsiders? In demo-
cratic theory there is general agreement that government cannot permit greedy
institutions that take over every aspect of their members lives or seriously inhibit
their opportunity to exercise the rights and obligations of citizenship; the struc-
ture of exit must be deliberately constructed and enforced by law and made prac-
ticable by public provisions to meet the needs of those leaving closed communities
( Warren 2009). Groups cannot, in classic Lockean terms, punish members (or
outsiders) physically or by conscating property. They cannot be permitted to act
as private despotisms or to organize private armies. Less clear is the extent to
which civil society is compatible with forms of pluralism that are closed and seg-
mented such that society is composed of (often hostile) pillars, or a collection of
semisovereign ethnic, cultural, or religious communities, or some version of cor-
poratism with xed sectors.
In our view, some degree of uidity, some mix of voluntary and ascriptive asso-
ciations, must be present. Escape from hereditary and ascriptive attachments (or
their willing reafrmation), the formation of new afliations for every conceivable
purpose, and shifting involvements among groups are essential aspects of liberty,
Rosenblum writes (1998, 26). Exit from groups, if not costless, must be a real pos-
sibility. Where autonomy is accorded only to groups or subcommunities, and where
government does not maintain personal legal rights and afford individual freedom
of movement among partial associations, civil society as a conceptual entity hardly
exists at all.
The boundary we have outlined, like every analytic approach to the subject, has
normative and political implications. Government must be sufciently strong and
independent of civil society groups to maintain the conditions for pluralism and to
insure that particularist and partial associations are not private despotisms. At the
same time, civil society is inseparable from limited government and a degree of
voluntarism and freedom of association. As members of groups and associations,
men and women serve as countervailing forces against arbitrary or unlimited gov-
ernment intrusion on the internal lives, purposes, and organizational energy of
groups; they must be on guard against even progressive, democratic colonization.
2. Civil Society and Government

The vision of civil society as an arena existing apart from, or antagonistic to, govern-
ment propelled the concepts revival during the last years of the Cold War. In this
capacity, theorists have frequently assigned to it two primary functions of particular
importance to democratic viability. The rst is as a sphere for popular resistance. The
development of struggles against Soviet imperialism in Central and Eastern Europe
led scholars and activists to develop its oppositional role as a parallel polis (Benda
1978), a site where some form of negative liberty might be distilled from an otherwise
totalizing government hegemony. With open political opposition impossible, civil
society came to be identied as an alternative source of struggle and solidarity. This
imagethe voice of an otherwise repressed mass bubbling up organically from
belowbecame a feature of late-twentieth-century political theory, fueling efforts to
make the concept portable to other parts of the world. In its role of empowering the
powerless, civil society was also thought to perform a second, related function of
organizing citizens for democratic participation. Political parties were only the most
conspicuous vehicles for this task. Though a vast array of voluntary associations,
groups might pool resources, ght for protection, and advance social policies.
Particularly in the past, before they were given the vote, women and other marginal-
ized social groups used associations to give themselves a voice that would not other-
wise be possible through formal, political institutions (Kelley 2006). The voices of
civil society spur popular discussion, turn the otherwise apathetic towards political
participation, create democratic audiences, and demarcate deliberative spheres where
policies, issues, and ideals may be afrmed or renegotiated.
As intermediaries between individuals and governments, voluntary associa-
tions may offer platforms for political participation, but this is not the limit of their
function, nor need political advocacy, resistance, or agenda setting be their primary
purpose. The ways in which group life intersects with political activity are neither
clear nor predictable (Post and Rosenblum 2002, 18). Recent scholarship shows that
in certain institutional, cultural, and historical contexts, civil society may have
merely an auxiliary (Encarnacin 2003) or even a negative (Berman 2003) role in
democratization. Indeed in some circumstances, a once vibrant civil society may
encourage an aversion to membership (Howard 2003, 124) or a politics of anti-
politics, with individuals living with their backs toward the state (Forment 2003,
438). That said, associations do provide a mechanism for political participation,
raising crucial questions about the relationship between group membership and
voice, the impact of unequal resources on political expression, and the multiple
avenues by which organizations come to engage in political advocacy. Each of these
areas reveals the complex and multivalent role that voluntary associations play; in
nding their voice they simultaneously empower themselves politically and shape
the identities of their members.
To begin, it should be plain that there is a direct relationship between
associational membership and the voices that emerge from civil society. Thus, if
association is compelled or otherwise involuntary, its voice may not represent all or
even most of its members, and altered membership may change the message and
the messenger dramatically. In this way, involuntary or coerced membership in an
association may represent a kind of compelled expression. While such a proposition
is anathema to classical liberals, it must also be reconciled with the needs of certain
groups such as labor unions, whose effectiveness depends on presenting a united
front (Rosenblum 1998, 215).
Associational voice may be strongly impacted by direct governmental efforts.
These efforts may aim at limiting voices that are deemed too powerfulexercising
undue electoral inuence, for example. It is precisely this question of inuence that
is at issue in the relationship between expressive participation and large aggrega-
tions of money. The discussion is often framed in terms of the corrosive or distort-
ing inuence that corporations or large nonprot groups endowed with substantial
resources are thought to have on the integrity of the political process (Austin v.
Michigan Chamber of Commerce 660, 668). Such concerns had led to the curtail-
ment of certain kinds of speech, particularly around electoral campaigns.
Alternatively, government policy may aim at enhancing the resources and opportu-
nities for civil society voices that might not otherwise be heard, with a view to pro-
moting more equal and universal participation or improving public debate
(Gutmann and Thompson 2004).
A third point involves the connection between individual and group view-
points. As deliberative theorists remind us, neither member nor group preferences
are prexed or pregiven. Associations cannot, in short, be reduced to an aggregation
of atomized opinions. Group self-understanding is variable, and internal dynamics
are often unplanned. Both constitutional law and political theory have, at times,
made the mistake of essentializing political voices. Juridical rulings have given pri-
ority to freedom for avowedly political associations, but in many cases, groups form
without the intent of engaging in political expression, and it is only later that asso-
ciations enter the political arena, after uctuations in membership, the inuence of
outside events, or a conuence of other factors. Womens groups are a prime exam-
ple. Often formed initially for the purpose of providing fellowship or advancing
charitable works, by the 1970s and early 1980s some of these groups had adopted an
explicitly feminist and highly politicized message (Evans and Boyte 1992). For many
associations, political expression may only be a small component of their larger
purpose or mission. A decision to take a public stance on an issue is, with few excep-
tions, not delineated in a groups constitution or other guiding materials.
But associational speech is a function of its composition, and for this reason it
is important to clarify further what is meant by voice. When associations speak,
their ideas do not oat freely within an ethereal public sphere (Habermas [1962]
1989). Rather, voices are necessarily linked to particular individuals or groups. As a
consequence, voice plays a central role in determining not only what we say in the
abstract, but also how we are perceived by others and how we perceive ourselves
that is, how we become who we are. Even if membership regulations do not affect
the objective content of a message therefore, they will surely inuence its impact.
This conclusion points to a nal connection between voice and membership.

Associations and the expression they produce do not enter the world stillborn.
Together, they create inuence, serving, with or without intention, to convince,
persuade, and otherwise affect persons and policies both inside and outside of
themselves (Dworkin 1987, 10). The unpredictability of political voice on the part
of associations whose core activities are only tangentially related to politics or
advocacy, the close connection between voice and membership, and the vulnera-
bility of both to government regulation or compelled association, lead us to sug-
gest that a wide degree of latitude be afforded to groups to control their membership
and affairs.
3. Civil Society as a School of Citizenship

Seeing associations as a resource for political participation, advocacy, protest, and
resistance does not adequately take into account the citizenship functions of civil
society groups. Claims for the positive moral effects of associational life are familiar,
and in recent decades attention has turned to the role of civil society in reproducing
democratic citizens. The perceived decline of democratic participation, the rise of
personal identities dened as consumers as a result of market forces and popular
culture, and egoism and atomism, combine to cast civil society as a democratizing
antidote. For critical theorists, associations comprise a comparatively egalitarian
public space for deliberation that claries and legitimizes public values (Baynes
2002). Others emphasize that when the internal governance of groups is demo-
cratic, members develop organizational skills, habits of decision making, and a
sense of political efcacy. Those who see civil society groups as so-called schools of
citizenship focus on an array of democratic dispositions and practices, shaped
directly through education or indirectly through some intangible hand (Brennan
and Pettit 2004).
Critics have tempered these judgments. First, as an empirical matter they
observe the prevalence of uncivil society that challenges an indiscriminate faith in
the democratizing potential of associational life. They point to groups and associa-
tions that are dedicated to advocating and enacting discrimination and other anti-
democratic values; or are organized hierarchically or by charismatic leaders, have
internal structures that are rigidly authoritarian, or recruit and exploit anomic
members from the disconnected margins of society (Chambers and Kopstein 2001;
Berman 2003; Armony 2004). Second, some of the largest and most effective civic
associations are national-level organizations, professionally led and managed; they
do not cultivate membership and if they do have members they fail to provide them
with opportunities for acquiring democratic commitments or skills (Skocpol 2003).
Third, instead of creating public identities and platforms for democratic delibera-
tion, civil society pluralism can produce a sense of impotence in the face of
impenetrable systemic complexity (Habermas 1992, 4536). Finally, school of citi-

zenship arguments are vulnerable for often assumingabsent an articulated social
dynamic and connecting structuresa transmission belt model that posits a
spillover of democratic values, skills, and a sense of efcacy from associations into
active participation in formal and informal democratic politics.
A principal caution against these accounts is that they often lead to a stringent
logic of congruence. The charge to reproduce citizens supports the idea that the
internal lives and purposes of civil society groups should mirror the democratic
values of equality and due process that (ideally) order public life. Advocates of a
seedbed of democracy account of civil society propose that tutelary government
should actively propagate and support groups that promote democratic practices
and dispositions, and should outlaw or impose costs on those that advocate and
enact ethnic, racial, or gender discrimination, deny members due process, or culti-
vate dispositions antagonistic to public values. The logic of congruence argues for
democracy all the way down, both as a matter of principle and as an empirical
claim. In this view, congruence must be mandated by government, if not always
coercively enforced. Principled justications are given for such compelled associa-
tion; for example, associations with social and networking objectives like the Boy
Scouts should be required to admit gays as scout leaders. The caution here is plain:
schools of citizenship thinking raises the prospect of government trespass across the
boundary of civil society. In resolving tensions between citizenship and member-
ship in favor of reproducing democratic citizens, the ecology of associational life
may be interrupted (Rosenblum 1998). Adding to concern about the logic of con-
gruence is the fact that it can be effected without direct public regulation and coer-
cion, that is, by government acting as patron and enlisting civil society groups as
partners, thus erasing the boundary of separate spheres.
4. Government as Patron
In accounts of civil society as the site of advocacy, participation, and resistance, and
as the moralized terrain of voluntary cooperation and personal development, civil
society is often represented as a spontaneous development that is independent of
government (Post and Rosenblum 2002, 1). But government frequently provides
more than just the infrastructure of public order and public services, the legal struc-
ture for forming organizations, and the parameters of civil and criminal law within
which voluntary associations operate. Government is also a material patron, pur-
chaser, funder, and partner in the presumptively benecial activities of civil society
groups.
Historians have documented the fact that governments have never been the
sole provider of education and social needs, and that voluntary associations have
not had the sole responsibility for caring for their members or communities (Novak
2009). In most societies, government recognition and direct and indirect support
for associational activities is expanding, and the number of groups that benet from
public patronage continues to proliferate. Of course, the extent and methods of
government support vary widely. In the United States, government provides nan-
cial support to civil society indirectly by awarding tax-exempt status and eligibility
for tax-deductible charitable contributions to associations. Depending on the ideo-
logical baseline adopted, this is characterized as leaving civil society in its natural
state, independent of government or as a public subsidy. In addition, government
provides nancial support for association activities directly through grants or
vouchers that individuals can use for schooling and other services. Indeed, the most
familiar area of government subsidy is education, where in the United States tax
credits and vouchers underwrite school choice. Motivated by moral or religious
duty and aimed at self-help for their communities, civic associations organize cul-
tural events and create charities and mutual support networks to care for their own.
Such groups have always been unequal in the resources their members can contrib-
ute and in their organizational capacity and leadership. Social and economic
inequalities are replicated in civil society, and there is a class and race bias in asso-
ciational life as well as in politics. Government subsidy and support for schools,
mutual aid societies, and cultural institutions is potentially redistributive. It helps
even poor groups provide services to their members, enabling meat and potatoes
multiculturalism (Walzer 2004, 39). Apart from small, informal associations like
private clubs, reading groups, or street corner churches, civil society groups increas-
ingly depend on some form of public support, complementing and correcting both
state and market failure in the provision of public goods and in the process encour-
aging volunteerism, collective responsibility, and cooperative provision. All the rea-
sons for valuing pluralism and particularism generally operate to encourage a
degree of government patronage, which benets the self-chosen, self-directed pur-
poses of associations.
Complicating this picture, however, are tensions between associational activi-
ties and public democratic norms of equality, inclusiveness, nondiscrimination,
and due process. For strong advocates of the logic of congruence, it is the responsi-
bility of government to democratize groups and liberalize their practices whether or
not they receive public subsidy. Public funding lends added force to the argument:
by subsidizing an associations nonprot activity, government is seen as delivering
the public message that it agrees with the associations broader purposes and prac-
tices. In this view, public support has symbolic and pedagogical as well as practical
effects. Hence, public patronage of civil society raises the boundary question in
acute form. Can religious groups subsidized by public funds be permitted to pro-
vide services only to coreligionists? Can they choose their constituency as they do
their members? Do they violate laws prohibiting discrimination in hiring when they
deny employment to workers of other faiths, or to gays because their doctrine
declares homosexuality a violation of divine law? Similar questions arise for secular
groups whose practices do not conform to norms of nondiscrimination or due pro-
cess. Legislation in the United States requires government, and by extension public
accommodations, to afford nondiscrimination protections to workers and due pro-

cess to all recipients of services. As more and more associations receive government
support, they are liable to fall under the public action umbrella. For those solicitous
of the pluralism and independence of civil society, the concern is that groups and
associations are liable to become artifacts of public policy.
5. From Patron to Partner

Recent developments in the United States and elsewhere pose a more radical chal-
lenge to the boundaries we have been tracing: third party government (Salamon
1995). The range of activities described as government-civil society partnerships is
exhaustive, from drug rehabilitation centers and housing to social welfare. The scale
and scope of direct grants and contracts is remarkable, made more so by the fact
that these collaborations extend to the core activities of government. In addition to
subsidizing the independent social and charitable activities of civil society groups,
government increasingly contracts with these groups for everything from correc-
tions, welfare provision, education, and job training to basic public services and
inherently governmental functions such as emergency relief and military training
and logistics (Minow 2009).
Policies about partnerships vary across countries, of course. Some countries
have competitive bidding among nonprot groups for block grants to deliver ser-
vices (Goodin 2003, 43), while others have historically organized their welfare states
around religious pillars, so that segmented pluralism is built into the provision of
important services. Some governments reserve more activities for the public sector,
though there is a general trend towards functional privatization (Verkuil 2009,
33031). In the United States, the menu of arrangements by which associations sup-
plement or substitute for direct government services is uid. Indeed, partnerships
is an inadequate description of this terrain, since the mix includes voluntary asso-
ciations, contracts with for-prot enterprises, and private foundations (Minow
2003, 8). An example of this uid mix is charitable choice, instituted by the 1996
Welfare Reform Act, by which federal dollars go to an array of groups including
religious associations that mix services with worship.
Inuential rationales for such partnerships do not always propose that there are
specic advantages to social provision by civil society groups. Rather, conservative
ideologies of small government, a general loss of trust in government, and the
perennial challenges of social provisioning, combine to argue for more devolution.
From this standpoint, the services provided by civil society groups are the equiva-
lent of those provided by government, but with the added advantages of cost-
cutting, less government, and the presumed efciency of a competitive market in
services. Other advocates of government-civil society partnerships claim that the
provision of services by civil society groups is better and more humane, not just less
costly or more efcient. For one thing, voluntary associations are seen as answers to
political corruption. For another, these groups are said to be more creative, exible,
and responsive. Supporters have faith in the ne-grained knowledge and sensitivity
that such groups exhibit when dening needs and serving their clients. Whereas
recipients of public services are often demeaned and disrespected, voluntary asso-
ciations are said to be more attentive to human dignity. Moreover, precisely because
of their partial, particularist nature, pervasively religious groups and secular groups
with strong moral or ideological commitments are said to do a better job at educa-
tion or drug rehabilitation, for example, though the evidence for this proposition is
contested (Glenn 2000; Wuthnow 2004).
Critics alert us to the potential moral and democratic tradeoffs of these devel-
opments. They raise questions from both directions: about the potentially deleteri-
ous consequences of partnerships for the values of pluralism and partial association
on the one side, and for democratic responsibility on the other. The overarching
concern is a lack of democratic deliberation about the appropriate division of labor
between government and civil society. It is one thing for voluntary arrangements to
supplement the public denition and provision of basic needs and services, and
another for government to step back from these democratic responsibilities.
Accountability is one concern, famously difcult to achieve even when activities are
performed by public agencies, much less when they are the work of a wide array of
dispersed associations. The reasons are plain. Legal assurances of public access to
information do not always apply to private actors. Moreover, to the extent that gov-
ernment delegates public purposes to civil society groups, these activities may be
buffered from due process and other constraints that govern direct state action
(Metzger 2009, 292). In broad terms, the standard means of accountability do not
apply to civil society groups. Associations are not subject to elections or the con-
straints of business enterprises, and are not responsible to voters or shareholders.
Scholars have argued that civil society associations have developed their own, dis-
tinctive accountability regimes: they are constrained by their unique motivation
and altruistic mission, and by reputational concerns. Nonprot groups tend to
develop networks with other associations that share their purposes and monitor
their conduct (Goodin 2003). Government partnerships can weaken this account-
ability framework without effectively replacing it with another.
Oversight and accountability for outcomes is only one difculty with part-
nerships from the standpoint of democracy. Diffusion frustrates deliberate demo-
cratic decision making when it comes to public provision, if only because
innumerable subsidies, grants, and contracts obscure the character and dimen-
sions of publicly mandated activities and services. Also from the government
standpoint, there is concern that provision by particularist associations dilutes
citizens rights and benets. Public funding of health care delivered through
Catholic hospitals, for example, affects the availability of reproductive services
and assisted technology, abortion, counseling for persons who are HIV posi-
tive . . . and end-of-life choices (Minow 2003, 13). Without alternative public pro-
viders or a plurality of civil society groups, individuals are necessarily directed to
particular religious or secular institutions for services. Pluralism and voluntarism

the promises of civil societydo not hold when government contracts with par-
ticular groups to address social needs.
Finally, there is the question of diminished government capacity as public
activities and the denition of public objectives are transferred to civil society and
for-prot groups. Partnerships can drain public agencies of expertise, management
skills, and the ability to provide regular oversight. They reduce governments ability
to undertake energetic action, mobilize resources, and dene and address collective
problems. And partnerships may be hard to reclaim, leading one scholar to propose
an antidevolution principle (Verkuil 2009, 316).
A different set of considerations arises from the perspective of civil society. The
chief concern is whether public purposes are displacing the plural, self-directed
purposes of associations as these groups initiate or alter their activities in order to
receive government grants and contracts. Originally designed to underwrite the
charitable activities of churches and other voluntary associations, government con-
tracts now provide not only incentives for certain activities but impose require-
ments for management, record-keeping, audits, and transparency. Associations, at
least in theory, are required to meet public measures of performance and outcomes.
They are moved directly or indirectly to adopt professional norms and to replace
the work of members and donors with professional staff. These developments pose
many challenges to associations that value privacy, hold themselves to different
measures of success, and seek to fulll nonstandard needs. Forces push in the direc-
tion of convergence towards bureaucracy or towards modeling activities after busi-
nesses or establishing their own for-prot enterprises. The growing popularity of
social entrepreneurship captures this trend. The overriding concern is that large
swaths of civil society will be colonized by government.
6. Conclusion
Insofar as public values follow public dollars, the latitude to opt out of government
support is vital to avoid compromising the independent life of associations (Minow
2003, 142). That explains why some religious leaders in the United States have refused
to participate in government-civil society partnerships. Associations may lose the
will and capacity to engage in activities and provide goods that neither markets nor
government take on, or can even imagine. At stake is the self-direction that is char-
acteristic of civil society: expressing and enacting plural visions of value, articulat-
ing their own missions, agitating for their independent ideas about public democratic
purposes, and acting as vocal critics of government. If one of the imperatives of
separating civil society and government is the preservation of countervailing
authority and power, do partnerships weaken that capacity? If one reason for the
mix of partnerships is to divide and distribute power, are these increasingly complex
arrangements weakening this purpose? (Novak 2009, 33). Social scientists have the
obligation to describe and explain, and political theorists to conceptualize and jus-
tify, the new contours of plural and partial civil society on the one hand and demo-
cratic capacity and control on the other. Is their increasing interpenetration
irreversible, and if so why and with what effects? What boundaries remain, or should
remain, and why? If we think that the value of association is as encompassing as the
value of liberty, we must continue to analyze, justify, and monitor the changing
boundaries between civil society and government (Post and Rosenblum 2002, 3).
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chapter 24
CIVIL SOCIETY AND CIVIL

LIBERTIES
mark sidel
The spaces of civil society provide the arenas in which citizens engage with each
other in the public sphere, argue and deliberate about the issues of the day, build
consensus around the future direction of their societies, and participate in democ-
racy, governance and dialogic politics (Edwards 2009, 64). But the state governs
those spaces, expanding and restricting them over time according to the interests,
systems, parties, and individuals in power. In some countries, the mechanisms for
such control rely solely on the raw exercise of state or party authority, but in most
nations, the law is a key mechanism for regulating the spaces in which civil society
functions. This chapter outlines some of the recent problems that civil societies
have faced, both in dealing with their own liberties to operate and in representing
and advocating for the broader liberties of citizens.
Democratic states, broadly dened, impose some constraints on the spaces,
rights, and liberties of civil society and civil society organizations, but those con-
straints tend to be functional in nature. Democratic states may regulate widely on
civil society, including such topics as the extent of advocacy activities by some kinds
of civil society groups as a condition for providing them with tax incentives, or the
extent to which organizations may engage in business activities without paying tax.
Direct and highly controlling restraints on social and political advocacy by civil
society organizations are less common in democratic states, and they tend to be
couched in terms of restrictions applicable to individuals and groups throughout
society rather than focused on a dened set of civil society, nonprot, charitable or
other groups. But there are times when the spaces, rights, and liberties of civil soci-
ety groups are directly threatened in democratic societies, and such episodes can be
serious. The destruction of nonprot organizations in the United States and the
civil society and civil liberties 299
silencing of nonviolent advocacy under McCarthyism during the 1950s was one
such moment, a time of exceptional challenge both for the organizations that came
under attack and because of the chilling effect it exercised on a wide range of non-
prot, charitable, academic, advocacy and other groups throughout American soci-
ety (Cole 2003). Some developments in the United States and the United Kingdom
since September 11, 2001 also raise these concerns, particularly the overbroad regu-
lation of terrorist nancing, overseas grant making, and statutes that criminalize
providing some kinds of support to or on behalf of groups that a government has
dened as a terrorist organization.
Constraints on the space for civil society in democratic states have followed a
pattern of broad restrictions on a wide range of organizations and direct restric-
tions on a small number of groups, with widening ripples of chilling effects on a
broader range of associations and their activities. But in democratic states, civil
society can ght back through the legal and policy process. In undemocratic states,
the situation can be far more serious, because such states can raise and lower restric-
tions on civil society at their discretion, carefully calibrating the space accorded to
different types of organization, the work they do, and the needs of the state or rul-
ing party. China and Vietnam illustrate this pattern of strong, direct, highly discre-
tionary, and widely encompassing restrictions in undemocratic states on the space
and freedom accorded to civil society groups.
1. The Dangers of Prosecution and

Overregulation: Restricting Civil Society
in the United States
These themes have emerged with particular force since the September 11, 2001 ter-
rorist attacks on the United States. Direct restrictions have been placed on the rights
and freedom of action available to a relatively small group of civil society organiza-
tions through a highly contested process that, in one important case, has reached
the U.S. Supreme Court, focused on the question of how laws can criminalize the
provision of certain forms of support such as humanitarian assistance, political
advocacy, or distributing literature to or on behalf of groups that a government has
dened as a terrorist organization.1 These restrictions and other steps taken by the
U.S. government have, at times, had a chilling effect on some activities carried out
by the nonprot sector (Sidel 2008, 2009a).
For the vast majority of American nonprots and foundations, the primary
impact of counterterrorism law and policy since September 11 has been the need for
enhanced information gathering on partner organizations, including checks against
government watch lists and the collection of nonterror certications; and the
shifting of risks for compliance downwards to the recipients of funds or to local
afliates of federated groups. For a minority of American organizations, however,

counterterrorism law and policy has had an even greater effect. Some of the largest
Muslim charities in the United States have been closed since 2001, their assets fro-
zen, and in some cases the organizations and their leaders charged with material
support for terrorism because of suspicion of their links with partner organizations
in conict areas overseas. The impact has also been felt directly by American public
charities and foundations that work or make grants overseas, perhaps most acutely
by organizations working in conict areas where extremist groups and militant
organizations operate. In a broad sense, the American nonprot sector has sought
to maintain its autonomy and vibrancy while agreeing and acceding to the govern-
ments interest in preventing nonprot organizations from being conduits for ter-
rorist nance or otherwise supporting terrorist organizations or their goals (Sidel
2009a; Guinane and Sazawal 2009).
The proscription and freezing of assets of several Muslim foundations on
grounds of material support for terrorist organizations, and the attempt to promul-
gate new voluntary regulations governing the work of American organizations
abroad, have been the most important regulatory actions in this area (Chesney
2005; Cole 2003; Crimm 2004). But the chilling effects of these measures went fur-
ther than the letter of the law, as was their intent. These effects included the addition
of unindicted co-conspirator organizations onto a government list that included
many well-known and well-respected Muslim groups; civil actions against Muslim
foundations; concerns in the American Muslim community about the impact of
donating funds to organizations that might come under U.S. government scrutiny;
and the impact of the Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines: Voluntary Best Practices
for U.S.-based Charities that were issued by the U.S. Treasury in 2002.2
These guidelines provided a detailed range of new provisions for charitable and
philanthropic organizations to use in their overseas giving that were intended to
prevent the channeling or diversion of American funds to terrorist organizations or
purposes. They included the collection of considerably more information about
recipient organizations than is often available, the vetting of grantees, and the exten-
sive review of their nancial operations way beyond accepted voluntary sector
norms. These guidelines were signicant to the U.S. nonprot sector because,
although they were voluntary, nonprot organizations faced considerable risks of
being investigated and prosecuted for failing to carry out the required due diligence.
In the words of Barnett Baron, Executive Vice President of the Asia Foundation, the
2002 treasury guidelines carried the danger of setting potentially unachievable due
diligence requirements for international grant-making, [and] subjecting interna-
tional grant-makers to high but largely undened levels of legal risk, [which] could
have the effect of reducing the already low level of legitimate international grant
making (Baron 2004). Legitimate charities struggled to comply with the standards,
while less professional or less well-intentioned groups could just ignore them.
However, measures with a narrow direct impact and a broad chilling effect can
also spur opposition, and the guidelines did precisely that, provoking a widespread
response by charities and foundations that were engaged in overseas giving who
demanded their withdrawal or substantial improvement, while also proposing their

own Principles of International Charity, a new self-regulatory approach to ensuring
that charitable funds did not nd their way to terrorists.3 Partly in response to that
opposition, the U.S. Treasury revised its guidelines in 2005 and 2006, but these
changes did not satisfy the nonprot sector. In 2007 the Treasury Department added
a risk matrix for charitable institutions to use in connection with their overseas
giving, also without consulting civil society groups themselves.4 By 2009, civil soci-
ety and the Treasury Department were at an impasse, with nonprots refusing to
recognize the legitimacy of the Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines, and the
Treasury refusing to allow the Principles of International Charity to supplant them.
In 2010, the new administration of President Barack Obama quietly opened discus-
sions with representatives of the American nonprot sector in an attempt to begin
bridging some of these policy differences.
In practice, however, nonprot fundraising and program activities had already
begun to narrow, in part in response to concerns over U.S. government policies.
Increasingly, overseas giving institutions were moving to a risk-shifting and risk
analysis perspective in their activities, in line with the approach of the treasurys
guidelines. The impact of government regulation was felt by prominent American
foundations that were already concerned about potential investigations of their
grant making by the U.S. government. For them, the stakes were high. Several of
these organizations, most prominently the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations,
responded by shifting responsibility to their grantees for terrorism-related risks
through new language in their grant contracts. Ford introduced new language in
2003 that required grantees to promise not to promote or engage in violence, ter-
rorism, bigotry or the destruction of any State, nor . . . make subgrants to any entity
that engages in these activities. This new language prompted initial opposition
from a group of elite universities and, for a time, from the American Civil Liberties
Union who decided not to accept new funds from Ford (Sherman 2006; Sidel
2007). In 2007, a prominent Indian nongovernmental organization (NGO) also
raised this issue with the Ford Foundation, requesting modication of the founda-
tions grant letter to restrict the very broad limitations to which it would have
bound grantees.
In other cases, the American nonprot sector has beaten back legal changes that
would have restricted civil society advocacy and other activities. One example was
an attempt in 2004 by the U.S. government agency that operates the Combined
Federal Campaign (CFC), through which hundreds of thousands of federal employ-
ees donate to nonprot organizations, requiring each nonprot that receives CFC
funds to investigate its own employees in order to certify that it does not knowingly
employ individuals or contribute funds to organizations found on the . . . terrorist
related lists promulgated by the U.S. Government, the United Nations, or the
European Union (Combined Federal Campaign 2003). This new requirement
ignited a restorm of opposition from the wide range of groups that received CFC
funding. Eventually the American Civil Liberties Union and a number of other
organizations led suit against the federal government to overturn the new
certication requirements (New York Times 2004; Washington Post 2004), and in
November 2005 the federal government withdrew them (New York Times 2005).
The shifting of risk to recipient organizations goes even further than these
examples suggest. In recent years, a number of local branches of the United Way in
the United States have required that each nonprot organization that receives
fundsdown to the smallest and most local charitable groupcerties that it
complies with all anti-terrorist nancing laws and regulations; that individuals or
organizations that the organization works with are not on any government terror-
ism watch lists; and that no material support or resources are being provided to
support or fund terrorism in any shape or form. In another example, it became
clear in 2005 and 2006 that government surveillance of nonprot organizations in
the United States went far beyond the small number of Muslim charities and other
groups that were suspected of direct terrorist ties. The American media revealed
that the U.S. government had targeted a much broader swath of the nonprot sec-
tor for observation. Hundreds of nonprots have had their events monitored, their
telephone calls logged, and their nancial transactions examined by government
agencies (Washington Post 2006).
In 2007, press reports indicated that the U.S. government was using software to
search, track, and correlate donors to an undened range of nonprot organiza-
tions (Los Angeles Times 2007), and new reports emerged in 2007 and 2008 around
government surveillance of nonprots, particularly advocacy organizations, in sev-
eral U.S. states. The New York Times and the New York Civil Liberties Union revealed
in 2007 that the New York City Police Department had conducted surveillance on
advocacy groups in at least thirteen states, as well as in Canada and Europe, before
the 2004 Republican National Convention (New York Times 2007). In Maryland, the
police and other security forces at the state and city level conducted surveillance on,
and inltrated, anti-war, anti-capital punishment and other nonprot organiza-
tions in 2005 and 2006, with reports sent to at least seven federal, state, and local
law enforcement agencies (ACLU of Maryland, 2008; Guinane and Sazawal 2009).
2. The Advantages of Quasi-Independent

Regulation and Monitoring: Regulating
Civil Society in the United Kingdom
British law also allows for the proscription of terrorist organizations and support
for their meetings and other activities, bans fundraising and funding arrangements
for purposes of terrorism, and prohibits retention or control of terrorist prop-
erty, among other provisions (NCVO 2007). However, there are differences in the
American and British approaches that offer useful lessons for the future in reducing
the potential chilling effect of these restrictions on civil society. In particular,
Britains approach to shutting off terrorist nance through charities relies in signi-
cant measure on charity regulators as rst responders, rather than simply shifting
risks to recipients. The independent statutory regulator of charities in England and
Wales is the Charity Commission, which has been at the forefront of charity-related
terrorism nancing investigations since before September 11, and which has played
a key role in investigating, resolving, and where necessary collaborating in prosecut-
ing ties between charities, terrorism and terrorist nance, while emphasizing the
need for evidence and fairness in all such proceedings. The commissions central
role was reafrmed under the new Charities Act of 2006.
The Charity Commissions approach has been effective because of its wide
investigatory and enforcement powers and its detailed understanding of devel-
opments in the U.K. charitable sector. In addition, the commission has had an
array of means at its disposal to deal with failures to abide by the law, ranging
from technical assistance and advice to, where needed, orders that can remove
trustees, freeze funds, or close organizations, in partnership with security forces
and prosecutors. Differences between the American and British approaches have
emerged in several key cases. After the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government
alleged that Interpal, a charity operating in both the United States and the United
Kingdom, was supporting the political and/or violent activities of Hamas. After
the U.S. government formally named Interpal as a specially designated global
terrorist organization and proscribed its activities in the United States, the
Charity Commission opened a formal inquiry and froze Interpals accounts. The
commission also requested evidence to support the allegations made against
Interpal from the American government, but, according to a limited report
from the commission, the U.S. government was unable to provide evidence to
support allegations made against Interpal within the agreed timescale. After the
U.S. government failed to deliver the evidence, the commission decided that, in
the absence of any clear evidence showing Interpal had links to Hamas political
or violent militant activities, Interpals accounts would be unfrozen and the
commissions inquiry closed. Although the United States and the United Kingdom
diverged publicly on Interpal, the inquiry also enabled the Charity Commission
to reassert that it will deal with any allegation of potential links between a char-
ity and terrorist activity as an immediate priority . . . liais[ing] closely with rele-
vant intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies to facilitate a thorough
investigation. The Commission also re-emphasized that as an independent
statutory regulator the Commission will make its own decisions on the law and
facts of the case (Charity Commission 2003).
The July 2005 terrorist bombings in London and charges that other British-
based charities were linked with terrorism brought renewed pressure to clamp
down on terrorist networks and their nancing. In February 2006, the then-
chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, announced that the U.K. Government
would review measures to combat the use of charities in terrorist nance and
establish a new intelligence centre to investigate terrorist nancing networks
around the world and their impact on Great Britain (The Guardian 2006).
Increasingly, however, American ofcials and commentators were critical of the

process-based British approach, calling the Charity Commission and other
British institutions too lax (New York Times 2006). Sharper measures were
announced in late 2006, when the British government said it would use classi-
ed intelligence to freeze assets of those suspected of having links to terrorism,
allow law enforcement agencies to keep their sources of information secret after
it is used to track down and freeze bank accounts, and seek pre-emptive author-
ity to halt terrorist nancing. These and other hardening moves came under
criticism in a report from the National Council of Voluntary Organizations
(NCVO) in early 2007 entitled Security and Civil Society (2007). The report
called on the government to view charities as allies in the ght against terrorism
rather than as adversaries and pointed out the fundamental sufciency of the
existing legal regime. It criticized the impact of some government actions in this
arena on charitable activities in the United Kingdom and abroad, particularly
with respect to Muslim organizations.
The Home Ofce and Treasury review of charities and terrorist nance was
released in May 2007, and it called for tighter coordination between the Charity
Commission and government agencies dealing with terrorism and terrorist
nance, a move by the commission to undertake more prosecutions, increased
funding for investigations rather than improved governance in the sector, and
other measures.5 The response from the NCVO on the potential impact of these
measures on civil society was swift and critical: By placing a veil of suspicion
over all charities, the Government is in danger of damaging the trusted reputation
of the voluntary sector and making people less likely to donate to good causes.6
The Charity Commissions response, considered and drafted very carefully,
described plans to accelerate its work on terrorist nance and to strengthen coor-
dination with government agencies, but in ways that would avoid too deep a chill-
ing effect on the sector: The way we tackle the risk of terrorist abuse of charities
falls squarely within our existing approach to regulation; we are uniquely placed
to deal with abuse where it does occur, collaborate with other regulators and
agencies and other parts of government and support trustees to protect their
charities; when allegations of terrorist involvement or links with charities arise,
we deal with them as a matter of priority. We will deal proactively, robustly, effec-
tively and swiftly when we have evidence or serious suspicions of terrorist abuse
involving charities; effective regulation involves putting a strong emphasis on giv-
ing support and guidance to charities to prevent problems and abuse occurring in
the rst place; we believe that the most effective way for the sector to minimize its
exposure to the risk of terrorist abuse is through implementing strong gover-
nance arrangements, nancial management and partner management (Charity
Commission 2008). The Charity Commissions rm actions against the misuse of
charitable groups while maintaining its independence and advising the sector on
effective measures to avoid involvement with terrorism and associated criminal
penalties, have been a contrast to the harsher, broader, and arguably less effective
policies of the United States.
3. The Imperative to Control: Restricting

Civil Society in China and Vietnam
In democratic states, civil society can ght back. In undemocratic states, the situa-
tion is far more serious, because such states can raise and lower restrictions on civil
society virtually at their discretion, carefully calibrating the space accorded differ-
ent types of organization, the work that they do, and the needs of the state or rul-
ing party. China and Vietnam illustrate this pattern of strong, direct, highly
discretionary, and widely encompassing restrictions on the space and freedom
accorded to civil society groups. The mechanisms used to impose such restrictions
are clear, and they echo the use of measures already deployed in democratic and
semidemocratic states.
These mechanisms include direct restrictions on registration and the status of
civil society groups; broad and discretionary prohibitions on the purposes for which
groups can be formed, often without grounds for appeal or any administrative or
judicial process; broad government discretion to dissolve, terminate, or take over
offending institutions and their assets, often without effective grounds for appeal or
due process; limited tax incentives for civil society organizations and high levels of
government discretion in implementing tax policy, including limitations on advo-
cacy, representation, and other groups that the government disfavors; limitations
on fundraising and foreign funding, particularly for advocacy, public interest, and
other disfavored groups; high spending requirements and limitations on permitted
investments; and discretionary requirements for organizational governance, includ-
ing a plethora of required government approvals.
In China, civil society and its accompanying regulatory framework have become
considerably more complex in recent years. The range of nonprot, philanthropic,
and other social organizations has expanded rapidly, as have their elds of activity.
At the same time, the management of the emerging civil society sector by the
Communist Party and state agencies remains exceptionally robust, highly discre-
tionary and reactive, and extremely effective in controlling the organizations that
the state seeks to control. Some social organizations are managed relatively lightly,
including a signicant number that provide social services or conduct other work
that the state supports and that are not perceived as threats. But advocacy, religious,
and policy-oriented groups are much more heavily managed and controlled by the
authorities. In some cases, organizations have been closed and civil society activists
have been detained, tried, and imprisoned for their activities.
The legal framework required to manage this highly differentiated process of
state control has its origins in Chinas 1982 constitution and in an array of regula-
tory documents promulgated and enacted since the late 1980s. These documents
regulate the full range of social organizations in China, including associations, often
referred to as social organizations (shehui tuanti), foundations ( jijinhui), civil non-
enterprise institutions (minban fei qiye danwei), and quasi-governmental public
institution (shiye danwei). Under the Chinese Constitution, particularly Article 35,
freedom of association is guaranteed, at least in textual form. In practice, however,
laws, regulations, and policies belie that broad constitutional freedom. The party
retains strong authority and wide discretion to control the registration, activities,
governance, fundraising, and voice of each kind of civil society group. In particular,
the government erects strong, high, and discretionary barriers to entry based in
policy, practice, and regulation. Registration procedures are complex and cumber-
some, with extensive documentation and approval requirements. Many social orga-
nizations therefore operate without formal registration, making them even more
vulnerable to state discretion and control.
Broad prohibition clauses bar the registration of groups that are perceived to
oppose the state and/or the party, or challenge traditional customs. Barriers to
operational activities are detailed and can be raised or lowered by the authorities at
their discretion, depending in large part on which specic organizations are regarded
as oppositional or contributory. But even for registered organizations that have
no signicant issues with the state, registration, reporting and other requirements
can be quite burdensome, particularly for small organizations. The regulatory
framework allows for signicant government intervention and interference and
state security forces intensively monitor organizations of particular sensitivity to
the party and the state. The enforcement of such rules can quickly halt the activities
of disfavored groups, which are usually advocacy and public interest organizations,
and send a clear, chilling message to other organizations that social services and
related activities are the favored work that civil society groups should undertake
(ICNL 2010).
One recent example is the case of the Open Constitution Initiative (Gongmeng),
which provided public interest and civil rights advocacy support to a range of citi-
zens and organizations in Beijing, including the investigation of major scandals
such as the distribution of tainted milk in which dozens of children died. When the
Chinese government decided to close the Open Constitution Initiative in 2009, it
began by using nonprot tax regulations and leveled a ne of 1.42 million Chinese
yuan against the organization for tax evasion. Then the Initiative was raided by the
civil authority responsible for nonprot organizations, the Beijing Civil Affairs
Bureau, which formally closed the ofce, while the organizations leaders were
detained by security forces.7 This tripartite use of civil affairs, security, and tax
authorities in a coordinated set of actions killed off an important advocacy organi-
zation within days, while also sending a strong message to other advocacy, public
interest, and representational groups around China to be cautious in their activities
(Chinese Human Rights Defenders 2009). Other forms of civil society activity can
be dealt with in even more summary fashion, including through the detention or
trial of persons who sign petitions calling for more rapid political reform (such as
Charter 08),8 or those who criticized corruption in the building of schools in
Sichuan province, a contributing factor in the deaths of many children after the
2008 Wenchuan earthquake.9
A similar range of methods is used in Vietnam, where efforts to enact a national

law on associations foundered in 2005 and 2006, partly because of concerns from
the party and the government that such a law could codify more expansive rights
for civil society groups that might eventually come to threaten party control (Sidel
2009b). What remains in place is a strict 2003 decree on the organization, opera-
tion, and management of associations that severely limits the organization and
activities of civil society groups and provides the government with wide discretion
to challenge organizations, especially those undertaking advocacy and public inter-
est representation. That decree provides for a long and complex process of organi-
zational formation (thereby discouraging most organizations from forming);
broad prohibition clauses barring a wide range of activities and maintaining excep-
tionally wide party and government discretion over associations; highly detailed
organizational requirements and approvals for a wide range of organizational
changes including board and staff; restrictions on branches and on bank accounts;
retention of the traditional dual master or dual management system of associa-
tional governance by the state in which groups are controlled both by specialized
line ministries as well as by a dedicated agency; and limits on advocacy in relation
to the party and government policies that restrict advice and criticism [to] mat-
ters within the associations scope of activities. In short, the 2003 Decree on
Associations is a document to retain state control and send a strong message to
civil society groups: that they should not challenge the party or the state.
Attempts to relax these restrictions have thus far failed, initially during an abor-
tive attempt to adopt a broader law on associations in 2005 and 2006. Concerned
with the potential impact of the law, the widespread debate that was occurring at
the time on civil society regulation, and the role of NGOs in the color revolutions
of eastern and central Europe, the laws progress towards passage was shut down by
the party in 2006 (Sidel and Vasavakul 2006). The government continued to use
older regulations both as a weapon and a message to the wider array of newly
formed charitable and nonprot groups in Vietnam. In particular, in 2009 the gov-
ernment closed a policy advocacy group, the Vietnam Institute of Development
Studies (VIDS), which had angered some in the party and in government for its
wide-ranging discussions of development alternatives and its commentaries on
government policy (BBC 2009).
This closure was accomplished by an administrative regulation directed spe-
cically against the institute, but with the clear implication that a line had been
crossed for others. To reinforce the point, a list was included in the administrative
regulation prohibiting policy and advocacy work in economic policy, public policy,
political issues, and a range of other sensitive areas. According to the decision,
organizations may only conduct activities within the areas under the List pro-
mulgated with this Decision. If they have views (phan bien) on the line, guidelines,
or policies of the party or the state those views must be provided to party or state
agencies with jurisdiction over such issues, and may not be released publicly.10
4. Conclusion
Every society provides some form of regulation, some restrictions or constraints,
on the role of civil society and its organizations. The space provided by the state
can differ dramatically from country to country, and is obviously more restricted
in nondemocratic regimes, but it will not do to discuss the constraints on civil
society in one-party states alone. Every government restricts civil society to one
degree or another, and even in more democratic states there are times when those
restrictions can have a signicant impact. The decade following September
11, 2001 was one such time, especially in the United States and the United
Kingdom, where enhanced government regulation has directly inhibited the
activities and operations of a small number of organizations, and had a chilling
effect on civil society as a whole in terms of the range of activities and innova-
tions that organizations and foundations have been willing to fund or undertake.
Elsewhere, states deploy severe restrictions on the space available to nonprots
not only in times of crisis but on an ongoing basis, seeking to mold a civil society
that serves the states needs for social service provision while discouragingand
at times even seeking to eradicateadvocacy, public interest lobbying, and other
challenging activities. Both paradigms are at work across the world, and both
serve to restrict the spaces of civil society which are essential to the prospects of
democracy and social justice.
What should governments do to strengthen the role of civil society organiza-
tions under the law, while also maintaining a level of regulation appropriate to
prevent the use of such groups for terrorist purposes (or as participants in ter-
rorism); for fraud, or for other goals that states rightfully nd unacceptable?
Democratic states need to avoid overly broad and overly limiting rules that seek
to restrict, channel, or excessively regulate some forms of conduct (such as over-
seas grants, or fundraising in Muslim communities), in the hope that actual
criminal violations, which are much more rare, will be deterred by such restric-
tions. Nonprots and civil society organizations are not the enemy of the state.
In nondemocratic states, governments are clearly and intentionally focused on
restricting the role of civil society groups through legal and political means.
Where feasible, outside donors, foundations, governments, and NGOs should
work with such states to help them recognize the benets of civil society and the
importance of guaranteeing nonprot groups the freedoms that many of these
states already enshrine in their laws and constitutions. But opening up to a
broader role for civil societyparticularly for advocacy, representative, and
policy-focused groupsis a lengthy process that depends primarily on domestic
developments. Helping such states with carefully drafted laws and policies that
achieve a workable and gradually expanding balance between rights and respon-
sibilities may bear fruit even in restrictive contexts.
NOTES
1. For more detailed information on this important case, Holder v. Humanitarian

Law Project, see http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Holder_v._Humanitarian_Law
_Project.
2. For the revised version of the guidelines, see www.treas.gov/ofces/enforcement/
keyissues/protecting/charities-intro.shtml.
3. See the Principles of International Charity at www.independentsector.org/
programs/gr/ CharityPrinciples.pdf.
4. For the treasurys risk matrix, see www.treas.gov/ofces/enforcement/ofac/policy/
charity_risk_matrix.pdf.
5. The Home Ofce and Treasury Review is available at www.homeofce.gov.uk/
documents/cons-2007-protectingcharities/Charities_consultation.pdf?view=Binary.
6. See NCVO, Overstating the risk of terrorist abuse could damage trust in
charities, available at http://politics.co.uk.
7. Among many newspaper and other reports on the Gongmeng closure, see Wong,
2009.
8. See, for example, articles in the New York Times on April 30 and December 24,
2009.
9. See New York Times 2010.
10. Decision 97 of the Prime Minister (97/2009/Q-TTg) Promulgating the List of
Areas in which Individuals are Permitted to Form Science and Technology Organizations;
Vietnamese text available at http://www.dost.hochiminhcity.gov.vn/web/data/
vanban/151/97-2009-QD-TTg.pdf(passage translated by Mark Sidel).
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Charity Commission. 2003. Inquiry Report: Palestinians Relief and Development Fund.
London: Charity Commission.
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Commission.
Chesney, R. 2005. The Sleeper Scenario: Terrorism-Support Laws and the Demands of
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Governments Use of Laws and Regulations to Persecute Freedom of Association.
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Management.[11]
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February 11.
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Strain: Counter-terrorism Policy, Civil Society and Aid Post-9/11. West Hartford, Conn.:
Kumarian Press.
International Center for Not-for-Prot Law (ICNL) and World Movement for Democracy.
2008. Defending Civil Society. Washington, D.C.: International Center for Not-for-
Prot Law and World Movement for Democracy.
International Center for Not-for-Prot Law (ICNL). 2010. NGO Law Monitor China
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Los Angeles Times. 2007. Anti-Terrorism Program Mines IRS Records; Privacy Advocates
are Concerned that Tax Data and Other Information May Be Used Improperly.
January 15.
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. 2009. Leading China Dissident Gets 11-Year Term for Subversion. December 24.
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chapter 25
CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE

PUBLIC SPHERE
craig calhoun
The value of a public sphere rooted in civil society rests on three core claims: rst,
that there are matters of concern important to all citizens and to the organization
of their lives together; second, that through dialogue, debate, and cultural creativity,
citizens might identify good approaches to these matters of public concern; and
third, that states and other powerful organizations might be organized to serve the
collective interests of ordinary peoplethe publicrather than state power as
such, purely traditional values, or the personal interests of rulers and elites. These
claims have become central to modern thinking about democracy and about poli-
tics, culture, and society more generally.
Theories of the public sphere developed alongside both the modern state with
its powerful administrative apparatus and the modern capitalist economy with its
equally powerful capacity to expand wealth but also inequalities, tendencies to cri-
sis, and intensied exploitation of nature and people. The public sphere represented
the possibility of subjecting each of these new forces to greater collective choice and
guidance. New media for communication have been important to this project, start-
ing with print and literacy and extending through newspapers and broadcast media
to the Internet and beyond.
This approach to public communication grew partly on the basis of active pub-
lic debate in the realms of science (Ezrahi 1990), religion (Zaret 2000), and literature
(Habermas 1962; Hohendahl 1982). Debates in these other spheres demonstrated
that the public use of reason could be effective and schooled citizens in the practices
of public communication. At the same time, this emerging notion of society treated
the happiness and prosperity of ordinary people as a legitimate public concern
unlike Greek thought, in which such matters were treated as mere private necessity.
Classical republican thought was inuential, with its emphases on the moral obliga-
tion of citizens to provide public leadership and service, and on the importance of
the public mattersres publicathat bound citizens to each other (Pocock 1975;
Weintraub and Kumar 1997).
Thinking about public life was also transformed by the rise of what by the eigh-
teenth century was called civil society. This meant society distinct from the state,
organized ideally as a realm of liberty, with freedom of religion, association, busi-
ness activity, conversation, and the press. The promise of civil society was that social
life could be self-organizing, even in complex, large-scale societies, and that it could
thereby be more free than if left to government ofcials or to technical experts. The
idea of the public sphere was crucial to hopes for democracy. It connected civil
society and the state through the principle that public understanding could inform
the design and administration of state institutions to serve the interests of all citi-
zens. Obviously these ideals are imperfectly realized, and some of these imperfec-
tions reect tensions built into the very starting points of civil society thinking. As
Hegel (1821) suggested, civil society reects a struggle to reconcile individual self-
interest with the achievement of an ethical community. And while the ideal of the
public sphere holds that all participants speak as equals, the reality is that inequality
and domination constantly distort collective communication.
1. Five Visions of Civil Society

The rst and most basic notion of civil society comes from urban sociability. People
interact, exchange goods or ideas, and form relationships, and especially in cities,
they are sociable with strangers. Social life is not restricted to family and kin, or to
neighbors, or to members of a single church. It reaches across the boundaries of dif-
ferent zones of private life to include those with whom there are no prior denitions
of mutuality or dependency. A cousin you have not met is still family, but the person
sitting next to you in the theater is very likely not. And during the early modern era
there were more and more such public spaces where people mixed with each other
not just theaters but market places, coffee houses, streets, and squares. Urban life was
basic to the Renaissance, along with a renewed engagement with classical culture
which itself celebrated urban life: the Greek polis or Rome itself. But early modern
cities quickly surpassed their classical forebears in the extent to which they brought
strangers together. The London of Shakespeare and Elizabeth I was a vital node in
networks of culture, nance, and markets for goods and the movement of people.
Medieval cities had traditions of self-governance, notably through guilds of
craftsmen and merchants. They organized social life with some autonomy from the
feudal hierarchy. Likewise, though they were hierarchical and associated with the
church, medieval universities were generally urban sites of self-governance and
sociability among strangers as they attracted students and scholars from different
civil society and the public sphere 313
regions. Perhaps most importantly, the idea of self-government by communication

among approximate equals, with respect for expertise not just inherited rank, was
basic to the republican ideals of thinkers like Machiavelli (1513). John Locke (1690)
extended this idea of society forged by lateral communicationinitially mainly
among elitesbeyond its urban roots. But cities remained vital exemplars of the
capacity for social self-organization. They drew ever-larger populations of strang-
ers, people of diverse backgrounds and occupations, into interaction that required
only a minimum of formal governance.
On a second account, the signicance of markets shifted from physical spaces
of direct interaction to larger-scale systems of exchange. This remained compatible,
however, with the idea that freedom is maximized and the collective good achieved
by relying as much as possible on individual choices, minimizing the role of govern-
ment, of large-scale organizations, and of collective action. Adam Smith (1776)
famously championed this view, though recent invocations of his name commonly
offer caricatures of his theory. Markets, he held, made social self-organization pos-
sible not only by advancing exchange, reconciling supply and demand, and con-
necting those with different assets and needs, but also by leading individuals to
serve the collective welfarethe wealth of nationsby producing to meet needs as
efciently as possible, and selling at prices set by the effort of each to buy cheap and
sell dear. Markets thus produced a moral benet by creating a collective good out of
even self-interested individual action; in Bernard de Mandevilles (1714) phrase,
markets made private vices into public virtues. For Smith, however, this only worked
so long as all market actors were truly individuals, subject to the conditioning of
market forces. Both joint-stock corporations and trade unions should be banned as
constraints on trade that undermined the morality and psychological conditioning
of markets. Absent such distortions, markets offered the public benets of both
wealth and the circulation of goods. Moreover, for Smith markets demonstrated
that civil society could be self-organizing and operate by its own implicit laws rather
than state governance or intervention (though Smith recognized that states were
crucial for a variety of purposes where markets performed poorly). However,
although markets translated private choices in potential public benets, they did
not in themselves provide the mechanism for self-conscious public choices.
On a third account, civil society is a matter of collective choice, but not govern-
ment. The collective good is best achieved by the direct action of ordinary people
organized in groups and associations (Edwards 2009). Civil society, in this view, is a
matter of churches, charities, voluntary associations, and self-help movements. It is
an arena in which people can do things for themselves and meet the needs of their
fellow citizens. Here, freedom is not limited to individual choices in relation to mar-
kets, but also realized in collective, voluntary efforts. Neighbors may form an asso-
ciation to provide mutual securitya neighborhood watchor to manage collective
resources such as park or recreation facilities. Residents of a town or a country may
collect funds and volunteer labor for purposes that are public insofar as they aim to
advance a broader good than the sum of their selsh interestsfor example, by
providing food for the poor, running a recycling program, or supporting a public
radio station. They may organize a social movement to try to persuade their fellow
citizens that it would be in the public interest to take better care of the environment,
or reduce poverty, or end a war. Of course, other citizens may believe the public
interest lies in oil drilling not recycling, in the incentives that come with inequality,
or in waging war. In this view, the essence of freedom lies in the right of people to
form such self-organized efforts, with a presumption that where these are not in
harmony with each other they will at least each be limited by respect for the others.
What distinguishes civil society from the state in this view is pluralism and the
absence of any master plan for progress.
A fourth view of civil society suggests that it is at best incomplete without a state
to secure cohesion and provide a mechanism for concerted public action. While early
theories of civil society generally emphasized its distinction from the state, most also
saw the two as necessarily complementary and closely connected. The state gave soci-
ety its form, even if civil society produced most of its internal web of relationships.
The state offered laws that were enabling for civil society, providing a framework for
the contracts central to market relationships and the judgments that balanced the
agendas and interests of different actors in civil societythose who want more parks,
for example, with those who want more housing or more job-creating industries.
Some, notably Hegel, stressed the extent to which the state constituted society as an
integrated whole, greater than the sum of its parts. This meant overcoming the
bifurcation between family life, which he saw as guided by universal ethics but
integrating only at the level of personal relations, and markets, which he recognized
could be more general in their reach, but were based on particularistic self-interest.
This distinction became basic to theories of social integration that contrasted the
directly interpersonal relationships of family, community, and voluntary association
to the impersonal and large-scale systems of market transactions. Without the state,
on such a view, the market basis of civil society would always be disruptive to forms
of social integration like the family, and would always be insulated from ethics by
precisely the automatic, systemic character that Adam Smith celebrated as its invisi-
ble handgood for generating wealth, but not social integration or justice.
The fth view of civil society focuses on culture. A key eighteenth-century pio-
neer was Montesquieu (1748) who emphasized not just laws but the spirit that lay
behind laws and mediated among the material conditions in different societies, the
interests of individuals, and the institutions they formed. Montesquieus specic
ideas about how this mediation works are today followed less than his more general
argument that laws and other conscious measures to organize social relations
depend on the culture in which they are situated (Alexander 2006). At about the
same time, David Hume (173940) developed an inuential argument that keeping
promises depends not just on good intentionssay at the moment a contract is
signedand cannot be explained simply by reference to nature (since human
nature is all too compatible with evading obligations). Rather, promises and con-
tracts are honored because failure to honor them is subject to widespread disap-
proval based not just on instrumental interests but on cultural traditions and norms.
Moreover, the expectation of disapproval (or conversely respect as someone who
honors his obligations) is not just a matter of conscious calculation but internalized
into habit. To say I promise is thus a performative action that is only intelligible
against a background of common culture that both recognizes what a promise
means and provides for appropriate reinforcementwhich in turn makes promise-
keeping habitual most of the time and prudent when people think consciously
about it. Culture is thus crucial to the capacity for agreements among individuals
that is important to other conceptions of civil society. Culture also links the mem-
bers of a society. This need not mean only a lowest common denominator of cul-
tural uniformity; it may mean overlapping elds of cultural participation. Common
religion may connect speakers of different languages (or vice versa). A shared busi-
ness culture may connect people from different political cultures or with different
musical tastes and so forth. Importantly, culture is not simply a matter of inheri-
tance but of continued creativity, and processes of reproduction incorporate nov-
elty, allow some practices to fade, and shift patterns of meaningas languages add
and lose words and adapt to new contexts.
Smiths account of the market was complemented, for Hume and for Edmund
Burke, by the notion that there was another kind of invisible hand of historical trial and
error that preserved useful customs and let others fade. More radical thinkers like
Rousseau challenged this idea of cultural selection just as Marx would challenge Smiths
account of markets. But each held that relations of power and property both kept prac-
tices in place that were not conducive to the public good, and drove cultural change in
ways that served specic interests. Antonio Gramsci (192935) made the analysis of
hegemonic culture basic to a theory of civil society. Society is held together not only by
markets, formal agreements, and the power of the state but by common culture that
underwrites consent. As Gramsci suggested, of course, hegemonic culture can also be
contested. Thinking about nature as resources to be exploited may be dominant in a
capitalist society but it is not impossible for Christians to contest this by expounding a
view of nature as a gift of God demanding stewardship. The very organization of civil
society is also shaped by culture. As Benedict Anderson (1983) has shown, we would be
less likely to conceive of society as nation absent representations in novels, in muse-
ums, and on maps. Charles Taylor (2004) calls attention to modern social imaginaries
like voting that depend on a cultural notion of what actions mean and what to expect
of others, or the market as it is represented in the news and treated as a kind of collec-
tive reality. Similarly, the place and even reality of a business corporation depends on
its cultural recognition, not just on laws or contracts.
2. The Importance of the Public Sphere

Some eighteenth and nineteenth century writers argued that, contrary to Adam
Smith and Edmund Burke, the visible hand of the state was better suited to provid-
ing public benets than either the invisible hand of the market or cultural tradition
that changed only incrementally, and mostly unconsciously. Jeremy Bentham (1789)
founded utilitarianism on the notion that the greatest good of the greatest number
depended on wise laws effectively administered. While some laws should provide
for the vitality and liberty of civil societyfor example by guaranteeing freedom of
the pressothers should put state administration to work in improving society.
Bentham was a pioneer in both prison and educational reform. Over the ensuing
centuries, states have been called on to build highways, run schools and health care
systems, and generally advance the welfare of citizens. But there is recurrent public
debate over what should be managed by states and what by markets or charities.
The public sphere is crucial to identifying the public good and to shaping both
public and private strategies for pursuing it. This is not a matter of critical argumen-
tation alone; it is also a matter of public culture that is shaped by creative and com-
municative processes as well as debate. Environmental discourse, for example,
addresses the market choices of individuals, nongovernmental organizations devel-
oping alternative energy sources, and government agenciesand it addresses each
with mixtures of rational-critical debate, attempts to change culture through art, and
demonstrations of solidarity and commitment. To engage such questions, individu-
als refer not only to their private interests but also to ideas about the public good.
The scope given to the public sphere is smallest in the market-centered idea of
civil society. Choices are made by individuals and connect to each other through
markets, which have their own logics like supply and demand. But though these
are in principle individual decisions, they are nonetheless inuenced by public
communication, such as advertising, and by the tastes and customs of specic com-
munities and social groups. Such social inuences on decisions can extend to ideas
of the public good, like buying environment-friendly products or avoiding pollu-
tion. Markets themselves operate on the basis of public institutions and public
knowledgefor example, publishing their nancial results so that investors can
make informed decisions. Of course, there are various ways in which the govern-
ment may intervene to try to make markets perform for the public good: forming a
central bank to insure nancial stability, for example, or passing laws making bribery
illegal.
The public sphere is also important where civil society is seen mainly in terms
of the direct action of citizensorganized informally in communities or more for-
mally in voluntary associations. Public communication shapes which civil society
organizations are formed, from health clinics to Girl Scout troops, and what issues
they address, from poverty to the environment. Not only do issues go in or out of
fashion, the very forms and strategies of civil society organizations are matters of
public knowledge, circulating in the media and rst-hand reports, and offering a
repertoire of models to each new organizing effort. Public discussion is also vital to
evaluating the extent to which different civil society organizations or social move-
ments do in fact serve the public good.
Urban sociability and public culture each evoke a public life that is not speci-
cally political. Urban public spaces anchor face-to-face interaction, and promote ser-
endipitous contactand simple visibilityamong people of diverse backgrounds.
Many of Europes cities, especially older ones, were distinctive in their pedestrian
character and their scale. Both suburbanization and larger-scale urban designs have
changed the character of public interaction. Sennett (1977) argues that where
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century urban life was vibrant and highly varied,
twentieth-century development often reduced occasions for interaction across lines
of difference. Citizens retreated into both privacy and the conformity of mass cul-
ture. This has negative implications for democracy. As Mumford (1938, 483) wrote,
One of the difculties in the way of political association is that we have not pro-
vided it with the necessary physical organs of existence: we have failed to provide the
necessary sites, the necessary buildings, the necessary halls, rooms, meeting places.
As directly interpersonal relations organize proportionately less of public life, media-
tions of various kinds become increasingly important (Thompson 1995). The nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries were the heyday of great urban newspapers;
since then, media that transcend locality have become increasingly important. First
radio and then television fundamentally altered the public sphere. They contributed
to a shift in what was publicly visible as well as in how public discourse was organized
(Meyrowitz 1985). New media shared both information and emotionally powerful
images widely. Critics charged broadcast media with debasing reason by substituting
powerful images for sustained analysis, appealing to a lowest common denominator
in audiences, blurring the lines between entertainment and critical discourse, and
centralizing control over messages in the hands of a few corporations. At the same
time, however, formations of public culture expanded dramatically, stretching across
the boundaries of nation-states. With lms, music, and new media, public culture is
increasingly global, though no version of it is universal. Much of it is centrally con-
sumed as entertainment, but some also puts issues like human rights or humanitar-
ian emergencies onto the public agenda.
The public sphere takes on its most specically political import when civil
society is seen as centrally related to the state. Whether the issue is waging war or
nancing health care or strengthening education, public discussion is the way in
which ordinary citizens gain knowledge, form opinions, and express them
potentially inuencing the state. Obviously some of these citizens have more
knowledge than others; some have access to media platforms that give them greater
inuence. And some citizens grow quickly bored by political arguments and change
their TV channel. Public discourse reects the inequalities of civil society, but it
also, at least potentially, compensates for them. Its very openness is an invitation to
all citizens and a recognition that the opinions and emotions of citizens matter. As
Hannah Arendt emphasized, politics includes not just petty struggles over power
but public action that forms enduring institutions like the U.S. Constitution.
Afrming the classical republican tradition, she suggested that it was a strange
trend that treated civil society rst and foremost as a realm of freedom from poli-
tics rather than freedom in politics, to understand by political freedom not a
political phenomenon, but on the contrary, the more or less free range of non-
political activities which a given body politic will permit and guarantee to those
who constitute it (1990, 30).
3. The Ideal of Publicness

Without a vital public sphere, civil society is not inherently democratic. Certainly
civil society organizations are not always constituted in democratic ways. They are
usually more accountable to those who pay for them and work in them than to the
general public. Nor do civil society organizations always pursue the public good,
even by their own potentially competing denitions. While some are philanthropic
in the sense that they exist to provide benets to those who are neither members
nor backers, others focus on serving specic intereststhose of business groups,
for example, or those of neighborhoods that use private security services to main-
tain their exclusivity. Many, like private clubs, simply serve their members. Only
some civil society organizations exist mainly to serve public purposes. These include
social movements that campaign on broad agendas like equal rights for women;
service organizations that provide benets for strangers like soup kitchens or home-
less shelters; political parties, charitable foundations, and public information ser-
vices. Only some work primarily in public ways, however, making their internal
operations transparent and open, and inviting strangers to join. Many organiza-
tions in civil society take on what they regard as public purposes but remain
in-groups of people knit together by personal relationships. Publics, by contrasts,
are forged in sociability and communication among strangers (Warner 2001).
The public sphere is public rst and foremost because it is open to all, not only
in the sense that all can see and hear but also that all can participate and have a
voice. In any modern large-scale society, this means that the public sphere is a mat-
ter of communications and other connections among strangers as well as among
those networked by old school ties, church membership, or community. One may
talk about politics or issues like climate change inside the family, but this becomes a
public conversation only when it is open to, and informed by, others. This may
happen in face-to-face meetings but also by reading newspapers or websites,
by writing a blog or calling a talk radio show. A protest march is part of public
communicationit is an effort to make a statement and show that many people are
behind it. So is a petition. But publicness is not just a matter of large numbers. It is
a matter of openness. Writing an article in a small journal still counts: it is available
to strangers and through them may inform further conversations.
Although openness is basic to the ideology and theory of the public sphere, vari-
ous forms of exclusion are basic to actually existing publics. Gender exclusion has
been widespread, even in the ostensible golden age of the public sphere (Landes 1988;
Ryan 1992). A state religion may exclude nonbelievers from public life, or a secular
public sphere may limit the expression of religious views in public. Workers were
largely excluded from the classical public sphere that Habermas analyzed (Calhoun
2010). Immigrants may be in a similar position today. Those who are excluded, or
who disagree with the dominant organization of the public sphere, often build their
own media and networks of communication and with them a counterpublic. Workers
created a proletarian public sphere (Negt and Kluge 1972). The womens movement
formed its own counterpublic and this enabled it to contest the terms of the hege-
monic public sphere (Fraser 1992). Counterpublics challenge the apparent neutrality
of more mainstream publics and reveal that hegemonic public culture reects power
relations, but as Warner (2001) suggests, claiming unfair treatment in the public
sphere is a strategy, and one even powerful groups deploy.
Not all public communication is about weighty matters of politics or institu-
tions. To the frustration of some, there may be more debate over the Academy
Awards than over public policy. Such opinions may not matter much for the fate of
democracy, but an open space in which to express and contest opinions does. Any
effort to police the boundary between opinions that matter and those that dont
potentially restricts the public sphere and political freedom. This is one reason why
the United States and other constitutions protect free speech and freedom of expres-
sion as such, and why limits on such freedomssay, to restrict public obscenity
are serious and consequential matters. Some have argued, for example, that because
family matters are essentially private, issues like spousal violence should not be on
the public agenda. This view has changed for some publics but not all.
Not only must it always be possible for people to raise new issues or challenge
dominant opinions, it must be possible for people to gain the information they
need for informed discussion. This lies behind arguments for transparency in gov-
ernment and business dealings, and also conicts over censorship of the Internet,
like that by the Chinese government. Chinese civil society is more and more active
in response; and this brings greater public communication as well as state efforts to
limit it (Yang 2009). Some matters of national security or trade secrets might legiti-
mately by kept out of the public view, but for the public sphere to work effectively
on behalf of democracy and citizens rights to shape their own societies, it is impor-
tant that information be accessible. A government that does not make it easy for
citizens to get access to data it collects is trying to limit democracy by limiting pub-
lic communication. Of course, the public sphere is limited not just by ofcial secrets
but also by lazy citizens. The ideal of publicness stresses active communication. In
this sense it is at odds with reducing public opinion to the answers of separate indi-
viduals to questions on opinion polls (Splichal 2000). Charles Horton Cooley (1909)
argued that this debased the notion of public opinion, which ought to be conceived
as no mere aggregate of individual opinions, but a genuine social product, a result
of communication and reciprocal inuence.
The public sphere matters most for democracy to the extent that it is able to
identify and constitute agreement about the public good and motivate people to
seek it together. On Habermass account, public opinion matters because it is
achieved by reasoned, critical debate. But how to ensure that communication would
be rational and critical is unclear. Hannah Arendt (1958) theorized public in terms
of creative action, the making of a world shared among citizens, and saw the found-
ing of the United States as a crucial example. Habermas idealized eighteenth-century
English parliamentarianism, newspapers, and coffee house conversation. He pre-
sented the public sphere as a realm of civil society in which private citizens could
communicate openly about matters of public concern, transcending their
particular statuses and addressing the state without becoming part of it. Such ide-
alization commonly underwrites narratives of decline. In Habermass classic
Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, for example, nineteenth- and
twentieth-century public discourse is analyzed in terms of the loss of rational-
critical capacity that followed the expansion of scale and the rise of public relations
management that incorporated the public into the realm of administered society.
Schudson (1998) has accordingly cautioned against such golden age concepts, argu-
ing that the ideal of the good citizen as an active participant in the public sphere has
long been contrasted with the failings of actual citizens.
Walter Lippman (1960) famously argued that most of the time citizens failed to
educate themselves in public debate, and the effusions of opinion called forth in
times of excitement were not to be trusted. John Dewey (1927) defended the capac-
ity for reason in large-scale communication, arguing that participating in public
argument was itself educative. As Iris Marion Young (2000) argued, the inclusion of
diverse people in public discourse is not only an entitlement of membership in a
democratic polity but also a tool for improving the quality of that discourse. Yet
Young also calls attention to the extent to which reliance on sophisticated reasoning
in public debates privileges the sophisticated. And democratic participation in the
public sphere is not only a matter of rational-critical argumentation but of oppor-
tunities to participate in shaping the formation of public culture.
Debates and institutions are public in their substance insofar as they extend beyond
the simple sum of private interests to the fabric of shared concerns and interdependent
processes that enable citizens to live together and pursue common projects. The topic
can be banal. Trafc regulations, for example, affect each of us in our private efforts to
get from home to work or to a stadium for a sports event. Where we drive our cars is
primarily a matter of our private interests. But both the building of roads and the
establishment of rules, including which side of the road to drive on, are matters of
public interest. We cannot accomplish our private goals without public investments
and public decisions; moreover, roads literally connect us to each other. In a democracy
therefore, speed limits, fuel efciency, and pollution controls are not merely technical
decisions for transportation experts; they are matters of debate among citizens. The
same goes for the infrastructure of communication in electronic mediaor for that
matter, whether to continue a war or create a national health care system.
In the nineteenth century, much political thought emphasized the fragility and
limitations of the liberal democratic conception of the public. Tocqueville (1840,
1844), most famously, argued that the democratization of society tended to elimi-
nate the intermediary public bodies that traditionally rened opinion and furnished
individuals with a collective social identity outside the state. Engaged, politicized
publics composed of distinct views and interests could be reshaped over time into
mass publicspassive, conformist, and atomized before the state. Tocquevilles fear
of the unmediated state would resonate with generations of critics of mass society.
In a similar way, Arendt (1972, 232) suggested, also speaking of America, since the
country is too big for all of us to come together and determine our fate, we need a
number of public spaces within it.
This issue comes even more clearly into the forefront as one considers civil
society and the public sphere on a transnational scale. The globalization of civil
society has created both connections among distant people and issues that cannot
be resolved readily in national public spheres. Much of this is a matter of market
structures that are seldom subjected to collective choice. Flows of goods, informa-
tion, and people often linked global cities as much to each other as to their national
hinterlands. More of public culture is transnational, and more voluntary organiza-
tions purse transnational agendas. Yet national states retain most of the capacity to
act on public concerns, and they remain crucial arenas in which public discourse
can inuence public power.
4. Conclusion
A vibrant public sphere is the dimension of civil society most essential to democ-
racy. It helps to constitute the demos itselfthe peopleas a collectivity able to
guide its own future. The public sphere works by communication, combining cul-
tural creativity, the selective appropriation of tradition, and reasoned debate to
inform its members and potentially to inuence states and other institutions. The
public sphere is vibrant to the extent that engagement is lively, diverse, and innova-
tive; its value is reduced when it is passive, or when it simply reacts to government
actions or failures, or when mutually informing communication is sacriced to the
mere aggregation of private opinions.
Public communication does not simply ow in an undifferentiated fashion.
Whether at a national or a transnational level, a public sphere is composed of mul-
tiple partially overlapping publics and counterpublics. These bring forward differ-
ent conceptions of the public good and sometimes of the larger, inclusive public
itself. They may be judged by their openness, creativity, or success in bringing rea-
son to bear on public issues. The stakes lie in the double question of to what extent
social life can be self-organizing, and to what extent social self-organization can be
achieved by free human action. The public sphere is vital to that possible freedom,
and to its exercise in pursuit of the public good.
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chapter 26
CIVIL SOCIETY
AND PUBLIC WORK
harry c. boyte
When civil society reappeared in democratic theory in the 1970s and 1980s, the
concept of space was emblazoned on banners of sweeping social movements. Civil
society formed a liberated zone from which to mount challenges to authoritarian
governmentswhat Frances Hagopian called the monster statein Eastern
Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. As Hagopian put it, Horizontal
solidarities in civil society challenged a corporatist state . . . in such a way that
expanded the scope of freedom (2006, 17). Today, civil society retains some of that
aura of political freedom as a space for uncoerced civic agency in a world where
manipulative techniques inltrate every corner.
In continuing recognition of this history, theorists as diverse as Benjamin
Barber and Jrgen Habermas see civil society as the citizen space. Barber, a pow-
erful critic of thin democracy and an activist organizer of international connec-
tions among participatory democrats, created the denition of civic engagement
that became dominant in the United States. Civil society, according to Barber
(1995, 7), includes those domains Americans occupy when they are engaged nei-
ther in government (voting, serving on juries, paying taxes) nor in commerce
(working, producing, shopping, consuming). His book A Place for Us: How to
Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong (1998) developed this view, arguing that
work is disappearing before the advance of technology and the market and pro-
posing that the voluntary sector is the home for democracy. In this home, com-
munity service with civic reection is the way to cultivate the identity of citizen as
alternative to producer and consumer. Barber also has strongly advocated for
deliberative practices.
civil society and public work 325
Habermas, a founding gure in deliberative democracy, has long sought to

establish the theoretical grounds for a public sphere of communicative rationality
rooted in civil society that separates deliberation from the entanglements of corpo-
rations and government bureaucracies (1998). In his view, civil society is an open
and inclusive network of overlapping, sub-cultural publics having uid temporal,
social and substantive boundaries. Though civil society is more vulnerable to
inequalities than government, it also is more open to new communicative insights
(1998, 307, 308).
In this chapter I argue that there are two very different ideas of civic agency
embedded in the recent history of civil society, corresponding to different con-
cepts of the citizen and civic education. They point towards very different
approaches to change. The concept of civil society as a home for the deliberative
citizen (and the related idea of volunteer service) has gained currency as an alter-
native to the rancor and fragmentation which are the stock-in-trade of public
culture. In this usage, civil society is the place where people learn to be civil, and
in the process gain what is called communicative power. As Fung and Wright
(2001, 31) put it, Through practice individuals might become better deliberators.
By seeing that cooperation mediated through reasonable deliberation yields ben-
ets not accessible through adversarial methods, participants might increase their
disposition to be reasonable, and to transform narrowly self-interested prefer-
ences accordingly.
Deliberation is worthwhile, but the deliberative citizen is too narrow a con-
ception of civic agency to make much change. Specically, it cannot stem the
metastasizing consumer culture which accompanies radical privatization.
Deliberative theorists make the mistake of separating citizenship from work, or
productive activity, paid or unpaid, that builds the common world as well as pri-
vate goods. In so doing they remove from the civic animus its most important
resource. In contrast, the concept of the citizen as a co-creator of democracy,
understood as a way of life built through the public work of citizens, holds far
more potential to challenge consumerism, to rebuild the commonwealth, and to
develop robust civic identities. Public work, by which I mean sustained efforts by
a mix of people who make the commons, or things of lasting civic value, puts the
citizen at the center of public creation. As citizens create a commonwealth of pub-
lic goods, they become a commonwealth of citizens. To take seriously developing
the capacities of the citizen as co-creator requires theorizing the public dimen-
sions of work, the capacities of civic agents to undertake it, and how and where
they develop such capacities. Schools of civic agency understood as co-creative
public work can be called free spaces.
In this chapter, I outline the profound challenges that face democracy against
the onslaught of a spreading consumer culture, detail the limits of civil society and
the deliberative citizen, and argue that we need a different concept of civic agency
and where it is developed.
1. Dismantling the Commonwealth

Commonwealth ideals once radiated across American politics and society (Boyte
1989), creating a vision of democracy as a way of life. In various formulations includ-
ing the cooperative commonwealth, the maternal commonwealth, and the com-
monwealth of freedom, the commonwealth was the idiom of choice for radicals
and reformers, labor organizers, small farmers and business owners, suffragists and
feminists, and those who struggled against racial bigotry and oppression. It chal-
lenged America in a prophetic voice to live up to its ideals.
An emphasis on the public dimensions of property drew from experiences of
the commons such as grazing and pasture lands, streams, and forests for which
whole communities had responsibilities, and in which they had rights of use. The
commons also included public goods of general benet built mainly through citi-
zen labor, like schools, libraries, community centers, wells, roads, and bridges. For
many immigrants, America represented a chance to recreate the commons that had
been destroyed or privatized by elites in European societies (Bertoff 1982). Thus,
Oscar and Mary Handlin used commonwealth to describe collaborative effort in
Massachusetts: For the farmers and seamen, for the shermen, artisans and new
merchants, commonwealth repeated the lessons they knew from the organization
of churches and towns . . . the value of common action (Handlin and Handlin 1969,
30). As the United States took shape after the American Revolution, the common-
wealth approach continued in myriad forms of public work that was paid as well as
unpaid.
Today, the attenuated qualities of the language of commonwealth make the term
sound like a dusty museum piece. This declension highlights the erosions in civic life
and in the civic identities of citizens. Consumer culture inculcates habits of what
Barber calls choice without consequence. As he put it, Decades of privatization
and marketization have obscured not only what it means to be a public . . . but also
what it means to be free (Barber 2006, 10). Studies document the damage wrought
by the spread of the consumer culture into every corner of human experience. For
instance, Susan Faludi describes the modern male condition in a consumer culture
as like the trapped housewife of Betty Friedan (1963), experiencing an inchoate
sense of lost identity and purpose hard even to name (1999). William Doherty details
the spread of consumerism into marriages, transforming the concept of marriage as
a life built over time in common, often through hardships and difculties, into the
idea of a search for consumer needs fulllment (2001). Kerry Ann OMeara (2007)
has described the striving culture in higher education that turn students into cus-
tomers and faculty into acquisitive awards-seekers. A recent World Bank study sug-
gests that the utopian consumer images carried by the internet to rural youth in
Thailand lure them away from supportive networks and communities into cities like
Bangkok where they have few resources.1 And as I have noted, rural youth entering
the cities with Playstation2 images of Laura Croft dancing in their heads may not be
well equipped for the challenges that await them (Boyte 2008, 212).
Habermas expresses concern about consumers privatistic retreat from the

citizens role (1998, 78), but deliberative practices do little to halt the process. In
fact, deliberation easily coexists with the consumer citizen, while separating those in
government from their own citizenship. The problem is that civil society under-
stood as the space of deliberative citizens severs the crucial connection between citi-
zenship, and work.
2. The Deliberative Citizen

of Civil Society
The western intellectual tradition of political theory conceives of public life as the
democratization of aristocratic leisure, contrasting civic activity with work. As Barber
(1998, 132) puts it, To the Greeks, labor by itself dened only mere animal existence,
while leisure was the condition for freedom, politics, and truly human forms of
being. Like the Greeks, Hannah Arendt (1958, 16162) viewed work as part of the
apolitical world. She saw manual labor as an undignied realm of necessity, herd-
like, while work was more creative and important, the activity of homo faber, or
man, the maker of things, the builder of the world. Yet Arendt still believed that
work did not belong in the public arena of deeds and action, and specically of poli-
tics. She held that the workers public realm is the exchange market, where he can
show the products of his hand and receive the esteem which is due him. Producers
remained private, or isolated: homo faber, the builder of the world and the producer
of things, can nd his proper relationship to other people only by exchanging his
products with theirs because these products themselves are always produced in isola-
tion (emphasis added). Arendt argues that the thought and manual art which pro-
duces craftthe creation of a model or idea in ones mind which one then reproduces
through shaping materials of the worldnecessarily requires isolation. Only appren-
tices and helpers are needed, she argued, in relations that are based on inequality.
Many civil society theorists follow Arendt in separating work from public life.
Thus Cohen and Aratos Civil Society and Political Theory (1992, ix) took work off
the map of civic engagement. Their book has democratic aspirations, but their idea
of civil society, seeking to retain for the concept a critical edge, revised the classical
notion of civil society as it descended from the Scottish Enlightenment and from
Hegel, which included large institutions and commerce and excluded the family.
Cohen and Arato argue for a reconstruction [of the concept] involving a three-part
model distinguishing civil society from both state and economy. They see this de-
nition as the way to underwrite the dramatic oppositional role of this concept
under authoritarian regimes and to renew its critical potential under liberal
democracies. Hence civil society becomes a sphere of social interaction between
economy and state, composed above all of the intimate sphere (especially the
family), the sphere of associations (especially voluntary associations), social move-

ments, and forms of public communication.
Deliberative theorists draw on this map of civic space. Indeed, Habermas antic-
ipated Cohen and Arato by decades in making a distinction between Greek democ-
racy and contemporary circumstances in his classic work, Transformation of the
Public Sphere ([1962] 1989). For the Greeks, public judgment was conveyed by the
concept of phronesis, practical wisdom developed through public action around
common issues in the space of public life. For Habermas ([1962] 1989, 52), the public
sphere in the modern world is qualitatively different than that of the Greeks: The
theme of the modern (in contrast to the ancient) public sphere shifted from the
properly political tasks of a citizenry acting in common (i.e., administration of law
as regards internal affairs and military survival as regards external affairs) to the
more properly civic tasks of a society engaged in critical public debate.
Habermas described a new deliberative role which emerged during the late
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in a vibrant urban culture of debate and dis-
cussion, formed in a new spatial environment of lecture halls, museums, public
parks, theaters, meeting houses, opera houses, and cafes. In such social spaces, older
hierarchical principles of deference and ascribed social status gave way to public
principles of rational discourse. Emergent professional and business groups asserted
claims to a more general social and political leadership. In such spaces, patterns of
communication emerged that were characterized by norms of inclusivity, the give
and take of argument, and a relatively horizontal experience of interaction.
Arguments were judged by t, by considerations of anticipated consequences, by
excellence of logic and so forth, not mainly by the social status of the speaker. By the
late eighteenth century or the beginning of the nineteenth (depending on the coun-
try), a public sphere grounded in civil society was casting itself loose as a forum in
which the private people, come together to form a public, readied themselves to
compel public authority to legitimate itself before public opinion (Habermas
[1962] 1989, 2526).
In the late nineteenth century, Habermas argued, the public sphere atrophied as
the public began to break apart into myriad special interests. Technical and instru-
mental rationality replaced more interactive public dialogue. Technical rationality
depends upon a prior assumption of what the ends entailhow problems are
dened and what solutions are desirableand concerns itself instead with the most
efcient means to reach them. After Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas
sought to sustain an enclave of un-coercive interaction on the basis of communica-
tion free from domination in theory and in practice (1971, 58). In this enclave he
hoped to locate a gentle, but obstinate, a never silent although seldom redeemed
claim to reason, a claim that must be recognized de facto whenever and where ever
there is to be consensual action (1979, 97). But his map separates citizens from the
work of actively building the commonwealth.
There is room for debate about the sharpness of distinctions between com-
municative and practical interests in Habermass writings, but the general point
is clear. In Between Facts and Norms, he argued that the capacity of civil society to
solve problems on its own is limited. The basic function of the public sphere is to
move problems to the formal system of politics and law-making. In the spaces of
civil society, the goal should be inuence, not power. Citizen efforts require
translation into formal structures to amount to much: Just like social power, politi-
cal inuence based on public opinion can be transformed into political power only
through [formally authorized] institutionalized procedures. The power of citizens
is sharply circumscribed, and Habermas asserts that the public opinion that is
worked up via democratic procedures into communicative power cannot rule of
itself but can only point the use of administration power in specic directions
(1998, 359, 362, 363, 300).
Civil society in such terms is the site for citizens who in their civic identities are
separated from the work of those in government, the economy, or the professions.
Like liberalism, Habermas said, discourse theory . . . respects the boundaries
between state and society but it distinguishes civil society. In particular, civil soci-
ety in his view is the social basis of the autonomous public sphere, distinct both
from the economic system of markets and productive activity and from govern-
ment. The strength of civil society is that it resists totalizing, technocratic impulses
operative elsewhere. But its limits are also sharply drawn: The success of delibera-
tive politics depends not on a collectively acting citizenry but on the institutional-
ization of the corresponding procedures and conditions of communication, as well
as the interplay of institutionalized deliberative processes with informally devel-
oped public opinions. For Habermas, there are clear no trespass signs; demo-
cratic movements emerging from civil society must give up holistic aspirations to a
self-organizing society . . . civil society can have at most an indirect effect on the self-
transformation of the political system. He argues that administrative power is
qualitatively and unalterably different than the space of civil society, and that the
administrative power deployed for purposes of social planning and supervision is
not a suitable mechanism for fostering emancipated forms of life. These . . . cannot
be brought about through [state] intervention [italics in original] (1998, 299, 307,
308, 298, 372).
Dynamics which put citizens in the role of discussants about the common
world, rather than active makers of it, correspond to formal distinctions in modern
societies in which politics belong to the state system. In this theoretical frame, citi-
zens have come to be consumers of the commonwealth, not its creators, even if the
process raises some concerns. Thus the recent focus on governance, not govern-
ment incorporates deliberative practices as a way to make government more
responsive and interactive with citizens. This was a main theme in Fung and Wrights
design principles drawn from case studies in what they called empowered delibera-
tive democracy, or EDD (2001). It is a major emphasis in approaches to governance
promoted by the World Bank and other foreign aid groups around the world.
Deliberation by itself puts the citizen in the position of consumer. Governments
role is to deliver services. Civil servants see themselves as outside the citizenry. This
is a widely shared viewpoint far beyond the ranks of theorists. As Paul Light (quoted
in Boyte and Kari 1996, 195) puts it, Departments and agencies have plenty of
advocates for doing things for citizens and to citizens, but there are almost no voices
for seeing government workers as citizens themselves, working with other citizens.
Politicians and government employees alike have psychologically removed them-
selves from being part of the citizenry. Yet deliberative and civil society theorists and
others take conventional denitions of politics far too literally. Their arguments
ignore the way talk is always connected to other processes of social reproduction.
They slight the multiple ways in which constructions of the commonwealth can
occur everywhere. Citizens need to be understood as at the center of the process if
they are to care for a world created and shared in common. To offer an alternative
to the deliberative citizen of civil society requires an alternative framework for
thinking about civic spaces, the capacities and identities that are developed within
them, and what it is that people do there.
3. Working the World in Public Ways

Cynthia Estlund (2000) has shown that workunderstood as productive activity
that makes things in the worldis a far more substantial way to bridge differences
of life worlds than the search for truth and mutual understanding. She brings
together a wealth of theoretical perspectives with a large body of social science
research and examples from popular culture in order to remedy what she sees as the
neglect of work and the workplace by communitarian and civil society theorists
who focus on associational life.
Estlund makes a compelling case that, despite continuing patterns of hierarchy
and discrimination, workplaces are still the only environments where most people
are likely to have sustained encounters with people of differing racial, cultural, and
ideological backgrounds. They also engage in such experiences with relative civility,
and around practical, goal-directed tasks, making them relatively conducive to sus-
tained experiences of collaboration. Her evidence shows that these features of work
and workplaces enable people to develop enhanced respect for others, reduce their
prejudices and stereotypes, build trust, develop civic skills, and create cross-group
networks. Estlund observes that it is not just the friendship potential of workplace
relations that makes it a promising source of interracial contact. The work process
itself is generally cooperative and directed towards shared objectives; much of it is
sustained, personal, informal, and one-to-one. Workplaces further democratic
equality by convening strangers from diverse backgrounds and inducing them to
work together towards shared objectives under the aegis of the societally imposed
equality principle (2000, 25).
Estlund also shows how U.S. social movements such as union organizing efforts
in the 1930s, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and the feminist
movement of the 1970s and 1980s made the workplace more open and public. Thus,
section seven of the Wagner Act, in part the product of New Deal reform and
organizing, created a kind of rudimentary system of civil liberties within the work-
place which in turn allowed further organization and action by workers. The equal
protection of the law provision, enshrining in words the notion that people should
not be segregated or subordinated on the basis of their race or certain other immu-
table traits was the result of civil rights efforts (Estlund, 85). Though the effort is
not completed, it furthers democratic purposes.
Paying attention to work and the workplace raises questions of power, change,
public creation, and social movements that are absent from conventional civil soci-
ety theory. In particular emphasizing work in its public dimensions and possibilities
has potential to reunite civic processes with civic consequences.
4. Free Spaces and Co-Creation

Free spaces are the schools of democratic movements. The concept illuminates lim-
its not only in deliberation but also in critical theory as conventionally developed.
Modern critical theorists have posed the question of how can citizens, bemused by
the socialization dynamics of modern capitalism, ever come to see themselves as
other than free consumers, even though their apparent free choice itself functions
to hide the oppressive relations of society? Karl Marx (198184) made the point
about mysticationwhat he called false consciousnessin The German Ideology:
Thus, in imagination, individuals seem freer under the dominance of the bour-
geoisie than before, because their conditions of life seem accidental: in reality, of
course, they are less free, because they are more subject to the violence of things.
Prevailing intellectual fashions, updating such arguments in comparative and
anticolonial terms and drawing on cultural theorists of power such as Frantz Fanon,
Michel Foucault, and Claude Lvi-Strauss, focused on the ways in which cultural
norms and practices operate in the spaces of everyday life to make oppressive
assumptions seem normal and inevitable. Dominant cultural ideas, including those
generated by the work of intellectuals themselves, shape, dene, and circumscribe
the life worlds and possibilities of ordinary people. For instance, the philosopher
Rick Turner (Fluxman and Vale 2004) in South Africa observed how the apartheid
system dramatized the naturalization of oppressive racial domination. Apartheid
seemed self-evidently the way things are to whites and even to many blacks.
Virtually every institution from family to church, from school to media, constantly
reinforced white privilege and power.
Cultural theorists of power have brought important attention to previously
invisible power dynamics. The problem is that when intellectuals develop a theory
of what is to be done in response, they radically oversimplify the operations of cul-
tural power. The result is a culturally estranged and alienated politics. Jean Paul
Sartres (Fluxman and Vale 2004) strategy of what he called transcendence, or the
act of standing outside prescribed roles and the commonplaces of culture with a
sharply critical eye, can be taken as emblematic of the general stance of critical
scholars. This stance is widely hostile towards rooted institutions such as religious
congregations, ethnicity, family, and ties to place, as well as to the broader cultural
traditions and symbols that constitute a sense of peoplehood. The view of liberated
consciousness as a process of radical separation from roots and traditions was viv-
idly summarized by Stanley Aronowitz in his essay titled, appropriately enough,
The Working Class: A Break with the Past (1974, 31213). According to Aronowitz,
all particular identities of race and nationality and sex and skill and industry are
obstacles to the development of genuinely oppositional, radical consciousness.
In contrast, a generation of social historians concerned with the actual develop-
ment of popular movementshow it is that ordinary people, steeped in experi-
ences of subordination, develop the courage and condence to assert themselves
and to become civic agents of their lives, not simply victims of larger social forces
has produced a rendering of the roots of democratic movements far more nuanced
than the views of alienated intellectuals. Social history draws attention to the con-
icted, contradictory quality of community settings and cultural traditions, full of
oppositional currents, democratic elements, and insurgent themes as well as hierar-
chical and oppressive ones. Social historians richly describe the ways in which pow-
erless groups draw inspiration from cultural elements that critical intellectuals write
off as part of a monochromatically oppressive system.
Sara Evans and I, building on such history, have combined ideas of public
space and freedom for democratic self-organization and co-creation in the con-
cept of free spaces (1986, 1992). Free spaces, rooted in everyday life settings, are
places in which powerless people have a measure of autonomy for self-organization
and engagement with alternative ideas, and they are also places where people come
to see themselves as makers of culture and producers of the world, not simply its
consumers. Free spaces are places where people learn political and civic skills. They
are also culture-creating spaces where people generate new ways of looking at the
world. In free spaces, people simultaneously draw upon and rework symbols, ideas,
themes, and values in their traditions and the culture to challenge conventional
beliefs.
Thus, for instance, the historian E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English
Working Class (1966) described places such as taverns and sectarian churches in
which working people found space for intellectual life and democratic self organi-
zations, separate from the gentry and the crown. Evans and I argued that free spaces
also lay at the base of every broad democratic movement in American history, from
the African American freedom struggle to the populist Farmers Alliances of the
1880s, from labor struggles of the 1930s to feminist movements and modern com-
munity organizing. Such democratic movements show how complex are the power
relationships of culture within and across societies.
Subterranean spaces for political agency and culture-making can be found even
in settings that seem overwhelmingly oppressive. Thus, for instance, African
American slaves in the American south found such spaces for self-denition and for
insurgent cultural alternatives to conventional views of American democracy in the
midst of extremely brutal circumstances. Christian religious services and practices

were originally taught to slaves by slave owners in an effort to break their ties with
their African roots and socialize them into passive, docile roles. Yet Christianity
provided rich materials for strategies of everyday resistance (for instance, work
songs and Gospel music) as well as far-ranging radical democratic visions of a
transformed racial and political order. Martin Luther King and others built on this
insurgent heritage to claim and transform denitions of American democracy, free-
dom, and citizenship.
Overlapping with civil society are qualities such as public space and freedom
that are often found in voluntary and community settings. As the movements of the
1970s and 1980s illustrated, these can create seedbeds for democratic movements. In
everyday community settings, people can nd space for relatively uncoerced con-
versation, for self-organization, and for free intellectual life. Yet democratic move-
ments arise to address patterns of power, not to nd a home. Democratic movements
subvert boundaries and cross categories. And they draw on the civic authority that
comes from work.
5. Democratic Movements and the

Commonwealth
Free spaces often nd hospitable ground in the life of communities and voluntary
associations. But their qualities of freedom for self-organization, political educa-
tion, and public co-creation are not the singular properties of community or volun-
tary groups. Nor is volunteerism or deliberation the best way to describe action
within such spaces. Broad democratic movements incubate in diverse settings which
people own, that have a measure of autonomy from dominant power, and that also
have a public quality connecting peoples efforts to the sense that they are helping
to build a larger world. The concept of free spaces does not so much refute the idea
of civil society as show its sharp limitations. Free spaces dramatize the necessity of
bringing work into the equation. Throughout American history, democratic move-
ments gained public power by drawing out the public dimensions of work. Such
movements argued that the powerless, helping to build the commonwealth, merit
full recognition as citizens.
This claim was the central theme in the African American freedom movement.
The civil rights movement built on the authority derived from making work visible
and testifying to its strength and endurance. Cristina Beltrn has shown how the
claim that illegals were building America was central to immigrant demonstra-
tions in 2006 which called for reform in immigration laws (Beltrn 2009). Similarly,
in womens history, women used claims based on their civic work (challenging the
distinction between paid and unpaid) as the foundation for suffrage. Thus, Francis
Willard, leader of the largest voluntary association of women in the nineteenth
century, the Womens Christian Temperance Union, titled her book The Work and
Workers of the Womens Christian Temperance Union (1972).
Free spaces reach beyond geographic communities through work and organi-
zations associated with work. In the African American freedom struggle, for instance,
groups like the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and community groups such
as womens auxiliaries described in the study by Melinda Chateauwert, Marching
Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (1997), sustained free
spaces for political education and oppositional culture for generations. Free spaces
are also foundations for the next wave of democracy-building.
6. Conclusion: The Democracy

Movement of the Twenty-First Century
Commonwealth language has had particular power in the United States, where the
concept of commonwealth has been widely used in democratic movements. But
the commons, in fact, can be found in every society. Understanding of how com-
mon pool resources are sustained by citizen action and learning has advanced con-
siderably through the theory-building of Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues at the
Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, for which Ostrom shared the
2009 Nobel Prize in Economics (1990, 1999). Ostrom found that decentralized gov-
ernance with high popular participationwhat can be called productive activity
that builds and takes care of the commonwealthhas key advantages in terms of
efciency, sustainability, and equity. These include the incorporation of local
knowledge; greater involvement of those who are trustworthy and who respect
principles of reciprocity; feedback on subtle changes in resources; better-adapted
rules; lower enforcement costs; and redundancy, which decreases the likelihood of a
system-wide failure. Ostrom argues persuasively for a mix of decentralized and gen-
eral governance, what she calls polycentric governance systems . . . where citizens
are able to organize not just one but multiple governing authorities at different
scales. Such mixed systems may be messy, but in studies of local economies, messy
polycentric systems signicantly outperformed metropolitan areas served by a lim-
ited number of large-scale, unied governments (Ostrom 1999, 37, 38, 40).
In shared governance a change in identications and identities takes place. As
people take care of the commons, they partly become the commonwealth they care
for. There are multiple examples of growing attention to diverse forms of commons,
from our common pool of knowledge to water resources, from public spaces to
forests and sheries.2 The era of privatization requires a global movement to rebuild
the commons, tied to skills, habits, and sensibilities of public work. Free spaces are
the schools of such a movement. They are also the seedbeds of democratic hope.
NOTES
1. See http://www.digitaldivide.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/MBR2.0-broadband-
Thailand-2015.pdf
2. The new commons movement is chronicled in websites such as On the Commons
(www.onthecommons.org).
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chapter 27

DIGITAL AGE
roberta g. lentz
A good deal of civil society action and deliberation, regardless of political persuasion, cul-
ture, or location, embodies what the celebrated theorist of everyday life Michel deCerteau
once foretold: that telecommunications practices have reorganized the speaking space.
Though he was referring to the ordinary oceans of communication that surround us,
deCertau noted how these oceanic waves and currents are amplied by electronic media
such as telephones, radios, and televisions (1998, 25253). Increasingly, we are witnessing
how these speaking spaces now include electronic networks, both private and public, local,
and translocal. The nodes, ties, and ows that characterize networks, both on- and ofine
(Barney 2004), augment and potentially redistribute communicative power. In their con-
temporary electronic online form, they enable millions of people worldwide to produce,
distribute, exhibit, and exchange information, images, music, video, texts, talk, and data.
The many uses to which people and institutions now put these ever-expanding
information, communication, and technology resources (ICTs) have led many digital
enthusiasts to assume that increased access to new forms of communication provides a
much-needed panacea for civic engagement and civil society empowerment in the
twenty-rst century: the digital age is upon us, and the so-called information society
will inevitably reinvigorate democratic public spheres that can now be connected and
animated electronically. Of course, such exaltations are not exactly new. Research and
commentary about the role of ICTs in producing or reecting social, cultural, economic,
and political change has a very long history. Current congurations are only the most
recent iteration of a series of moments that have celebrated new waves of technological
innovation. At least since the 1950s with the advent of computing, scholarly, journalistic,
business, and other forms of reportage have detailed the many ways in which technolo-
gies affect the workplace, personal interactions, and government processes. Each of these
contributions pours more evidence into a steady ow of discourse about the so-called
communication revolution or the network society. In terms of civil society and ICTs, the
residue of these discursive ows takes two primary forms. The rst is a utopian sensibility
that argues that the evolution and intermingling of computers, information, knowledge,
networks, and, more recently, a powerful array of mobile communication technologies,
have changed just about everything for the betterso much so that civil society groups
should wholeheartedly embrace these technological changes. The second is a more dis-
cerning vision that counters the enthusiasts by showing how societies have not changed
in fundamental ways, but have merely evolved and adapted to successive waves of tech-
nological innovation. Power relations remain embedded in historically dominant pat-
terns and institutions, and inequalities persist despite increased opportunities for access
to new electronic consumer products and services (Bucy 2004). To skeptics, these rigidi-
ties prevent ICTs from having any truly transformative effects on civil society or indeed
society at large.
This chapter argues for a balanced response to these viewpoints since the potential
for civil society in the digital age situates the most interesting questions and possibilities
between these two poles of thinking. For those immersed in either a celebratory or a
skeptical orientation towards digital communications, it is often difcult to appreciate
fully the others point of view. In part this is due to the fact that both positions offer pow-
erful evidence to counter their contrarians positions. What seems true depends on the
specic context in view, and particularly on the level of access to, material capacity to
purchase, and skills at using, any type of electronic communications resource (Warschauer
2004). With this caveat in mind, the chapter briey reviews both utopian and skeptical
claims, while acknowledging the role that context and resources play in deciding how civil
society actors approach the use and governance of electronic media resources. I argue
that civil society and ICTs stand in reciprocal relationship to each other: politics and com-
munication go hand in hand. This is why attention to the role that ICTs play in political
communication anchors much of contemporary discourse about civil society and ICTs.
However, it is shortsighted to focus only on how electronic media are used instrumentally
for different civic and political purposes because such an orientation gives short shrift to
those actors and institutions thatoften silently and in the backgroundcontinue to
build, own, control, regulate, and oversee the use of electronic media tools, architecture,
and systems (Bollier 2003). Therefore, communications policy and the governance of
ICTs are key civil society issues. In fact they are the issues that will ultimately determine
whether ICTs offer any transformative potential for civil society in the future.
1. Can New Technologies Transform

Civil Society?
Advocates of a utopian sensibility claim that ICTs transform any number of things
including notions of the self and human relationships; the design of corporate,
civil society in the digital age 339
government, and civil society institutions; the conguration of occupations and the
workplace; the dynamics of political representation and civil society organizing; the
way government functions, and even the structure of entire economies and societ-
ies. Such enthusiasts advance an emancipatory rhetoric that suggests that new tech-
nologies not only empower those who use them in unique ways, but that they also
transform the very contexts in which people act and are empowered. These claims
are fueled by a beguiling mythology that seems to resurrect itself at the beginning of
each new wave of innovation; it woos many into thinking that this next will be
different from the ones that preceded it. This one will change everything; and it will
be decisive. To the optimists, the discourse around each wave of innovation
computing in the 1960s, the Internet in the 1990s, and more recently, the fascination
with social media like Facebook, Twitter, and other electronic media toolspulses
with a fervor that makes it difcult to sound the alarm about previous waves of the
new that have already come and gone with few signs of real or signicant social
transformation. So what is it that sustains the notion that technologies alone have
the capacity to revolutionize society, politics, and markets? What tantalizes so many
newcomers to embrace such an optimistic discourse?
One part of the answer lies in the allure of enticing concepts that tempt even the
most critical imaginations. Key examples include the notion of the cyborg from
feminist theorist Donna Haraway (1990), the concept of cyberspace as expressed
by science ction writer William Gibson (2004), and extensions of these concepts in
myriad other renderings that include cybersociety and the virtual public sphere,
as well as the network society, the knowledge society, the blogosphere, and
convergence culture. One of the most compelling of these images related to politi-
cal communication is the notion of an electromagnetic cyberspace. Similar to the
ways in which Jrgen Habermass (1991) notion of a democratic public sphere has
been mobilized into a new norm in the study of democratic and political commu-
nications, the idea of cyberspace also depicts a vast landscape of imagined potential
for social transformation. To many, electronic spaces like the Internet are, in them-
selves, agents of change: such spaces offer up the potential to transcend the limita-
tions of identity, space, time, and even the nation- state. The many declarations of
an already converged communications environment predict tectonic shifts that are
destined to release new waves in the electronic oceans of communication. As in a
real tsunami, we are advised to get out of the way of these disruptions, to expect that
our lives will be forever transformed, and to anticipate that everything must there-
fore be rebuilt as a consequence. Such assertions, however, pay little attention to
how such convergences actually come into being in the rst place. Many simply
assume that they are irreversible, and must be dealt with.
The sheer size of the celebratory literature on this topic is daunting. Clay Shirky
(2008) is only one of the most recent and highly celebrated digerati prophets of
the optimistic view who focuses on the transformative power of the Internet. Shirky
writes and lectures about how important things like open source software, web eco-
nomics and social computing are transforming social relationships, and therefore
the nature of institutions and society overall. His enthusiasm about social media
and social networking tools such as blogs, corporate services like YouTube, and stor-
age/replay technologies like podcasting, represents a contemporary version of the
optimists mythology (Li and Bernoff 2008). Clearly, social media do have civic and
political effects, especially in reducing the transactions costs and increasing the
speed and reach of information exchangeadvantages that are extremely useful to
civil society groups in their campaigns and fundraising. Social media make it con-
venient, for example, to contribute to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
when responding to catastrophes like the 2010 Haitian earthquake, simply by tex-
ting a number that authorizes a withdrawal from a cell phone account (DeBrosse
2010). Technology certainly facilitated convenience voting during the 2008 United
States Presidential elections for early and absentee voters (Leval and Marsico. 2008),
and one-click access (which enables citizens to obtain information on public ser-
vices and entitlements by calling a telephone number or visiting a website) are now
features of many e-government portals in the United States, India, Brazil, and else-
where (Peirce 2000).
Other examples of just-in-time electronic communications permeate practically
every aspect of contemporary culture, at least in many higher-income societies:
entertainment, healthcare, banking, education, transportation, and, as already noted,
civil society activism. The recent lm Ten Tactics for Turning Information into Activism
tells the stories of twenty-ve human rights advocates around the world who have
successfully used information and digital technologies to create positive change.1
The participatory potential of these technologies is celebrated through workshops,
online seminars, symposia, and intensive courses for civil society groups where peo-
ple can learn about new tools. For example, the New Organizing Institute (NOI) in
the United States offers webinars focused on online organizing techniques.
According to its website, the NOI is the only progressive training program that inte-
grates cutting-edge online organizing techniques, political technology, and eld
leadership. The Institute connects organizers to new organizing resources to enable
them to support the progressive movement more effectively.2 In addition, scholars,
artists, educators, media makers, social movement organizers, journalists, and many
others are gathering together to discuss the transformational potential of participa-
tory forms of digital media production under the rubric of do-it-yourself, or DIY
citizenship, and DIY media. Some of these new media practices are referred to as
tactical media, and their producers as modders, hacktivists, prosumers,
remixers, and user-generators.3
The discursive wave that was activated by the dot.com boom and wireless ad-
hocracies in Helsinki and Tokyo during the 1990s (Rheingold 2003) also drew
attention to dramatic personal stories that related how civil society activists were
using ICTs to positive effect, to the drama and excitement, and often the conict,
that were involved in Belarusian ash mobs, or rapid street-organizing in the color
revolutions of eastern and central Europe, or Iranians using Twitter and text mes-
saging to broadcast their opposition to rigged elections to an international audience
in 2010. Adding to this enthusiasm were positive reviews about public journalism
the idea that ordinary citizens could help to reinvigorate the media by using
interactive technologies to supply news just-in-time to large corporations from

powerful new storytellers like grassroots and citizen journalists, or digital reporters.
The ordinary people that deCerteau talked about were now allegedly empowered to
speak truth to power by using their personal blogs, online chat groups, email, and
other low-cost and user-friendly tools of publishing.
Another compelling contemporary example of these benets comes from
Benkler (2007), who offers persuasive evidence of the economic value to society of
collaborative production of information and culture. Benkler analyzes networked
systems of production like Wikipedia, the Creative Commons, and the blogosphere
and asserts that collaborative, participatory communication in the form of these
and other freely available or low- to no-cost tools provides larger-scale social and
economic benets than do closed systems of copyrights, patents, and other forms of
intellectual property. The free and open-source software movement is another
example of collaborative production and alternatives to restrictive licensing regimes,
one that works from a specific political commitment to the development of
commons-oriented tools and resources which, many would claim, are the essence of
civil society (Coleman 2009).
Yet the key to sustaining the vibrancy of these ordinary oceans of communica-
tion is a clear-eyed understanding of how the political economy of electronic media
and their governance affect civil societys communicative potential. A balanced view
of ICTs in the service of civil society recognizes that discourses about the digital age
are arguments that must be critically examined in terms of their effects on real
policy change. Merely applauding the use of new media without also examining
how they are produced and governed gives short shrift to the capacity of civil soci-
ety actors to change the ways in which ICTs evolve as tools that can enhance popular
participation in decisions that affect everyday life. Therefore, it is important to tem-
per expectations about whatever the next new electronic media tools and spaces
of the moment might achieve.
2. Tempering Enthusiasm about Civil

Society in the Digital Age
An equally important but much less visible literature reviews and critiques the
emancipatory discourse of the digital age. May (2002), Mattelart (2003), Barney
(2004), Webster (2006), and Hindman (2008), for example, take a much more cau-
tious stance, arguing that claims of the new divert attention from, and may even
occlude, consideration of the structural conditions that reinforce long-standing
patterns of inequality, domination and control. Such critics assert that the transfor-
mational view of ICTs errs in its underappreciation of history and its overreliance
on traditional notions of modernity, progress, and the ability of technology to
dene and promote these things. In their view, critical perspectives on these issues
provide a much more useful scaffolding on which to hang past, present, and future
expectations about the promise of ICTs for civil society and civic and political
engagement.
More than twenty years ago, Jennifer Slack questioned why another book on
the information age was needed, adding in response that the information age is a
contested terrain: what it iseven if it ishow it is lived, how it is experienced, and
how it is described differ remarkably . . . It is an ongoing articulation of political,
economic, and ideological arrangements and relations. . . . descriptions of the infor-
mation age are ideological, and ideology permeates what the information age is
(1987, 12). This conclusion is just as true today, and at least four major weaknesses
of the enthusiasts inclinations deserve particular attention. The rst is technologi-
cal determinism. Webster, for example, describes how proponents of digital-age dis-
course tend to focus on spectacular technological innovations and their
transformative power as the foundational elements of an information society.
Those who proclaim that space and time have been completely transformed by
symbolic interaction in cyberspace also advance, knowingly or unknowingly, this
perspective, embodying a genre of futurism. . . . full of dire wake up warnings, shal-
low analyses of the substantive realm, and the self-assurance that only the author
has understood what most others have yet to comprehend (2006, 78). Proponents
of this discourse tend to overemphasize the changing value of information-related
activities to economic productivity and social restructuring.
ICT enthusiasts tend to think that the machines themselves, not the goals of
progress, have come to play center stage. . . . Convenience, like progress, parades itself
initially in fairly uncomplicated terms. Put simply, a better life means having
access to tools that help us save time, conquer space, [and] create comfort (Slack
and Wise 2005, 17, 28). Langdon Winner (1999, 43) denes this line of thinking as a
belief that technology is central to dening what culture is and that technology
itself drives cultural change. Winner also argues persuasively that artifacts actually
embody politics rather than simply being instruments of them. He contends that
the things we call technologies are ways of building order in our world, recalling
Lewis Mumfords warning that both democratic and authoritarian tendencies are
manufactured into the uses to which technologies are put by human beings: What
matters is not technology itself but the social or economic system in which it is
embedded (Winneer 1999, 32, 28), as is evident in contemporary examples of digi-
tal rights management (DRM), technologies that prevent the circumvention of
locks on digital content distributed online.
The second weakness of uncritical techno-optimism is that it ignores the
authoritarian tendencies and other problems that Mumford warned of, part of what
Robins and Webster (2004, 65) call the dark side of the information revolution.
A key factor that gets lost in much of the hype about the digital age is the illusion
that users control technology rather than being manipulated by it: being able to
choose among a given plethora of electronic products and services that include cell
phones, blogs, text messaging, pagers, personal data assistants, and high-technology
phones says little about the real and lasting outcomes that these choices have on
empowerment and social relations. Communication technologies facilitate and
enhance the exchange of information and support online environments in which
civic ties and political beliefs can be created, strengthened and potentially reshaped.
Yet the nature and direction of these ties and beliefs, and whether ICTs weaken or
reinforce the Balkanization of social life that is such a feature of civic engagement
ofine, are contested issues on which the evidence is ambiguous (Shah, Kwak, and
Holbert 2001; Galston 2003). Nevertheless, these are important questions to be
answered if communications technologies are to fulll their potential in building
alliances for change that are broad and deep enough to be effective and sustainable
beyond episodic protest events or advocacy campaigns (Fine 2006; Leadbeater 2008;
Harkin 2010). Equally important are the choices that are not being made available
by technology developers, engineers, policy makers who approve patents, and many
other kinds of decision makers. People must have the choice to opt in, not just to
opt out of, already proscribed forms of digitally mediated forms of interaction or
self-disclosure. By linking consumer activism with activism on digital rights, new
choices can also be made more widely available.
Third, the literature that perceives technology as imposing its character on the
rest of society (May 2002, 13) overestimates the power of ICTs to dislocate and
democratize states and markets. May identies four common claims that are espe-
cially problematic: that ICTs create a social revolution, give birth to a new economy,
transform politics, and further the supposed decline of the nation state. He empha-
sizes how oftentimes online communities are purported to be independent of
geography, so that their presence changes the character of democratic account-
ability and participation (May 2002, 15). Although shifts are certainly occurring in
the manner of political activity, critics like May are more sanguine about their polit-
ical efcacy, partly because of the states continued role in undermining privacy and
imposing censorship online. Therefore, the arguments that are often made by ICT
enthusiasts about the impotence of the state in the face of globalized information
networks need to be tempered, even if new technologies, as they do, enable civil
society to confront the state more effectively. The decline of the state rhetoric ren-
ders government as merely an untrustworthy and residual actor that is out of date
and out of touch with technological developments. Yet it will be government inter-
vention in many cases that will address concerns about the digital divide
(Warschauer 2004). Those who would like to have access to digital forms of com-
munication as well as the capacity to use these tools in ways that enhance their well-
being rely on state intervention to support the necessary enabling regulatory
conditions such as affordable prices, consumer protection laws, interoperability
among networks, and nondiscriminatory services. Public interest policy advocates
across the globe are working to develop these conditions, but they encounter many
obstacles along the way including weak institutional capacity and a lack of resources
to sustain their policy-advocacy efforts; constantly shifting policy-making forums
in which to direct these activities; and an inability to communicate to non-experts
what is at stake with regard to digital rights.
Finally, and following from this third point, all ICTs depend on communication
infrastructure resources in order to function that are either owned by corporations
or regulated in some way by governments. These resources include the radiofre-
quency spectrum for anything that travels over the airwaves, telecommunication
networks for anything that requires a telephone connection, satellite dishes with up-
and down-links for video content, cable connections for cable content, and software
codes that control the switching involved in internetworking services like the Internet.
All of these resources entail some form of government involvement, whether in the
form of hard or soft law, light or heavy regulation. For this reason, ICT enthusiasts
need to give equal attention to the intricate and reciprocal relationship that exists
between those who design, nance, build, maintain, and govern electronic commu-
nication infrastructures and tools, and those who seek to use these resources for
political, economic, social, or cultural ends. No technology is neutral and therefore
no policy related to technological design or regulation comes without costs as well as
benets. The Internet is a case in point, designed as a decentralized, open architec-
ture system that now facilitates a wide variety of speakers and speech forms that
include pro-democracy supporters, media fan clubs, hobbyists, student groups, and
scholarly networksas well as pornographers, human trafckers, and weapons deal-
ers. Whose and which rights should be protected when online are important ques-
tions for the new forms of governance that are emerging in the digital age. This is
why civil society needs to pay attention to communication infrastructure policy
making as much as to the various uses to which new digital tools and services are
applied.
3. Communication Infrastructure Policy

is a Civil Society Issue
Communication policy can be dened as the principles and procedures of action
that govern the uses of communication resources (Rodriguez et al. 2009, 1), and
encompassing broadcasting, telephones, computers, and telecommunications,
Internet, freedom of government information, privacy, and intellectual property
(Mueller, Page, and Kuerbis 2004, 169). Yet while these media and telecommunica-
tion systems clearly enable or disable the expression of other freedoms, rights,
and capabilities, scholars who specialize in the study of social movements and
human rights advocacy have largely ignored the role that communication media
actually play in social, political, and economic struggles (Downing 2008). As
Mueller, Page, and Kuerbis note, recent literatures on global civil society and
social movements contain numerous allusions to the importance of information
technology (IT) in enabling activism, [yet] almost none of this literature looks at
communication and information policy as the object of activism (2004, 170).4
This blind spot becomes especially problematic when civil societys interests in
communications policy are subordinated to the desires of industry and govern-
ment. For example, the surveillance of civil society by corporations in collaboration
with the state is increasing via data retention laws through which governments
demand the collection of customer data by telecommunications companies, includ-
ing internet service providers or ISPs (Costanza-Chock 2004). Corporate and gov-
ernment ltering of online content has also emerged as a new form of censorship
(Diebert et al. 2008), using intellectual property law to restrict online behavior such
as downloading restricted content, invoking libel laws to create a chilling effect on
online critiques of corporate behavior, and interfering with network trafc speeds
or blocking access to certain websites.5 These interventions question the transfor-
mative civic and political power of ICTs: instruments do not necessarily make for
new politics as Barney (2004, 130) puts it. Therefore, new and more democratic
forms of ICT governance and control are essential if the potential for civil society
engagement and participation are to be realized in the future.
At the same time, a specic group of civil society scholars and activists are
increasingly active in challenging the control that intellectual property policies exert
over online communications through digital rights management and other instru-
ments (Jorgensen, 2006). For example, the Global Consumer Dialog on Access to
Knowledge and Communication Issues, a project of Consumers International, the
global network of some 220 consumer organizations worldwide, seeks to harness
the collective voice and effectiveness of consumer groups working around the world
and across issue sectors, to guarantee that consumer interests are adequately repre-
sented in national and global debates around intellectual property and communica-
tions rights, and thereby to serve as a catalyst for policy change, by putting pressure
on governments and international organizations to develop more balanced IP and
communications regimes.6 This project is one of many collaborative projects
launched since the turn of the century in 2000 by civil society organizations around
the world to ensure that digital rights are designed to benet citizens and consumers,
and not just corporations. These rights include such things as rights to privacy, free-
dom of expression, and access to electronically stored educational and government
information. Effective advocacy in this area of public policy necessarily involves
understanding the ways in which a variety of rights regimes intersect, and possibly
collide or contradict one another, especially human rights and consumer rights.
Two successive United Nations Summits in 2003 and 2005 captured this dilemma
under the rubric of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and
resulted in the formation of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
As Raboy (2004, 225) summarizes, civil society involvement in both the UNs WSIS
and IGF meetings and processes has inuenced civil societys expectations about new
forms of governance. The WSIS highlighted a range of questions about issues and
processes that characterize the governance of communications at the start of the
twenty-rst century. Without having resolved all these questions, which include issues
of how to structure civil society participation, legitimacy, and accountability, WSIS
and other similar processes illustrate an emerging paradigm for global governance
generally, one in which information and communication issues are central and in
which new actors, particularly global civil society, will have to be involved. Legal schol-
ars such as Mueller (2002) and Zittrain (2008) have argued strongly for more, not less,
attention to global governance issues, particularly those focused on the Internet.
4. Conclusion
In closing, this chapter has sought to emphasize the extent to which civil society delibera-
tion and action in the twenty-rst century both depend on, and are constrained by, elec-
tronic communication resources and their governance. The experiences of civil society
actors in utilizing ICTs lie somewhere between the optimistic and skeptical perspectives.
Associational life can obviously be enhanced by electronically networked communication;
better communication and information transparency often make for richer democratic
processes; and electronic public squares or spheres do provide spaces in which important
civic and political work gets done. However, these spaces need to be recognized not just as
something for civil society to use, but as something that civil society must work to preserve.
This must include efforts to expand the adoption of open source software and its underly-
ing philosophy, new frameworks for asserting civil societys rights in relation to electronic
media, and policies that have the potential to sustain civil society media themselves as
spaces and capacities that are relatively independent of governments and corporations
self-organized, community-based alternatives that are owned and managed by citizens,
that are noncommercial and as open and participatory as possible (Hintz 2009).
Whether one thinks enthusiastically or skeptically about civil society in the digital
age, or perhaps manages to balance elements of both perspectives, it is important to
remember that we are not the rst generation to wonder at the rapid and extraordi-
nary shifts . . . as a result of new forms of communication (Marvin 1988, 1). Whatever
advances technological innovations may provide, they never arrive without problems
and inequalities that must be interrogated. In the inevitable delight that is certain to
follow the arrival of the next new technology, it is important that civil society scholars
and activists commit to a proper balance of expectations. The infrastructure policy of
ICTs matters just as much as ICTs themselves in protecting and sustaining whatever is
positive about electronic tools and spaces for civil society in any age.
NOTES
1. See http://thecoup.org/blog/10-tactics.
2. See http://www.neworganizing.com/about-us.
3. See http://diycitizenship.com.
4. A recent important exception is S. Milan (2009), Stealing the Fire: A Study of
Emancipatory Practices of Communication, available at http://www.eui.eu/Documents/
DepartmentsCentres/SPS/ResearchAndTeaching/ThesesDefended/THesesDefendedBio
Abs2009/MilanPhDThesisAbstractAndBio.pdf.
5. See, for example, http://opennet.net/blog/2010/02/pakistan-blocks-youtube-videos,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,druck-678508,00.html, and http://opennet
.net/blog/2008/10/oni-afliate-reveals-chinese-surveillance-skype-messages.
6. See http://a2knetwork.org/.
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chapter 28
CIVIL SOCIETY
AND PUBLIC JOURNALISM
charles lewis
Centuries ago the great Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei wrote that All truths
are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
For people throughout the world, this has always been a formidable challenge,
and it remains so today in the warp-speed, metamorphosing, multimedia Internet
age of more than a hundred million websites, global search engines, instant mes-
saging, and social networks. Facts are and must be the coin of the realm in a
democracy, for government of the people, by the people and for the people, to
paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, requires and assumes an informed citizenry, at
least to some extent. There can be no substitute for the truth about all the powers
that be. On this point, Lincoln could not have been more emphatic: I am a rm
believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any
national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts (cited in Seldes
1985, 246).
And yet, regardless of the power of new media technologies, these real facts
have proven to be ever more elusive to ascertain. In many nations including the
worlds oldest republic, there is a discernible pattern of laggard, inaccurate, and
articially sweetened information that distorts the political decision-making
process, mutes popular dissent, and delayssometimes fatallythe cold dawn
of logic, reason, and reckoning that is so fundamental to an open democracy.
The antidote to this problem is a vibrant and fearless civil society, including
journalists and other watchdogs who provide citizens with correct, contempora-
neous, and independent information about the decisions that affect their daily
lives.
1. Defining Reality
Access to independent, accurate, and timely information by citizens is essential in
order to hold any institution accountable. This is hardly a new notionafter all,
freedoms of expression and information have long been recognized as universal
human rightsbut nonetheless it is often lost sight of. Throughout history, totali-
tarian regimes have restricted public access to information and further distorted
popular perceptions of reality through disinformation. For example, in 146 b.c., on
the northern coast of Africa, would the Carthaginians have agreed to relinquish
their 200,000 individual weapons and 2,000 catapults to the Romans had they
known that earlier the Roman Senate had secretly decided to destroy Carthage for
good (Kiernan 2007)?
Secrecy, deception, and the abuse of power transcend time, geography, culture,
language, and means of communication. The worst mass murderers in the twentieth
century have had a common modus operandi, from Hitlers Third Reich to Josef
Stalins Soviet Union, and including Mao Tse Tungs Cultural Revolution (more accu-
rately characterized as Chinas Holocaust), Pol Pots Khmer Rouge killing elds in
Cambodia, and Hutu Power in Rwanda. In this last case, the minority Tutsi popula-
tion were demonized for weeks on the airwaves as inyenzi or cockroaches that needed
to disappear once and for all, and very soon thereafter, up to a million Tutsis were
murdered within a few short months (Kiernan 2007, 5368). Around the same time,
in Bosnia, the Serbs described Islam as a malignant disease which would infect
Europe, and their ethnic cleansing between 1991 and 1995 resulted in roughly 200,000
Muslim casualties (Kiernan 2007, 5889). Most recently, in the rst genocide of the
twenty-rst century in the Darfur region of Sudan, Arab Islamic Janjaweed militias,
working in tandem with the Sudanese government, murdered hundreds of thousands
of people and displaced millions more, with the brutality also spreading into Chad
and the Central African Republic (Kiernan 2007, 5946).
While the extent and predictability of human destruction certainly have varied,
their enabling means have not. Those in power have always controlled the ow of
information, corroding and corrupting its content using newspapers, radio, televi-
sion, and other mass media to carefully consolidate their authority and cover their
crimes in a thick veneer of fervent racialism or nationalismand always with the
specter of some kind of imminent public threat, what Hannah Arendt called objec-
tive enemies (Arendt 1951). Unfortunately, restricting and distorting information
while also diverting the publics attention has not been the preserve of mass mur-
derers and their regimes. Indeed, for those wielding power, whether in the private
or the public sector, the increasingly sophisticated control of information is regarded
as essential to achieving success, regardless of subject or policy or administration or
country. Besides controlling the external message, strict discipline about internal
information is also regarded as essential, severely limiting current and future access
to potentially disadvantageous documents including calendars, memoranda, phone
logs, and emails. In this 24/7, instantaneous, viral communications environment
civil society and public journalism 351
concerning the most controversial, politically inconvenient subjects, mere delay is

the simplest, most efcacious public relations tactic available.
There are astonishing nancial prots to be made in delaying and distorting the
truth when investment banks misrepresent their nancial conditions, or when com-
panies knowingly manufacture harmful products, as the tobacco, asbestos, lead, and
other industries have been found to have done many years later. There are immedi-
ate electoral rewards for delaying and distorting the political truth, as U.S. President
Lyndon Johnson did in 1964, secretly girding for a major war in Vietnam while pub-
licly promising not to send more soldiers off to war; and as President Richard Nixon
did in 1972, secretly authorizing a political dirty tricks operation inside the White
House, that, among many other things, effectively derailed the campaign of his
most formidable Democratic foe, Senator Edmund Muskie. Both incumbent presi-
dents breezed to their election victories in those years.
In the case of the Vietnam War in which hundreds of thousands of lives were
lost between 1962 and 1975, the public learned over a period of yearswith inculpa-
tory revelations still seeping out four decades laterthat the rationale for direct
U.S. involvement was always a lie (Alterman 2004). Instead of the United States
being attacked in a remote part of the world known as the Gulf of Tonkin by the
North Vietnamese in 1964as the President had announced to the world, precipi-
tating congressional passage six days later of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that
authorized nearly all of the carnage that followedthe United States government
had been engaged for months in top secret intelligence-gathering activities in a-
grant violation of North Vietnams sovereign land, air space, and territorial waters,
including consciously planned, aggressive military provocations against that coun-
try. Remarkably, the American people then or since have never directly been told the
truth by their government about what really happened in that remote part of the
world, years before 24-hour cable news, cell phone cameras, video recorders, and
the Internet.
Many of those lies and distortions were ofcially documented in the Department
of Defenses secret, voluminous history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon
Papers, which were leaked to reporters and courageously published by the New York
Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers in June, 1971. Publishing the
Pentagon Papers and the medias coverage of the Nixon Watergate scandal still rep-
resent U.S. historys high-water mark in the longstanding struggle between raw
political power and democratic values. But even with those emblematic moments
of an independent, skeptical press in the American experience, important informa-
tion about those in power took years to become known to the public. As the then-
executive editor of the Washington Post, Benjamin C. Bradlee, mused two decades
later, What might have happened had the truth emerged in 1963 instead of 1971?
(Bradlee 1990).
With the advent of the atomic age after the Second World War and the demon-
strated capacity for nuclear annihilation on an unprecedented human scale, the
inclinations of those in possession of previously unimaginable power to operate in
secrecy and deception were exacerbated. According to historian Garry Wills, the
bomb fostered an anxiety of continuing crisis, so that society was pervasively mili-
tarized. It redened the government as a National Security State, with an apparatus
of secrecy and executive control . . . The whole history of America since World War
II caused an inertial rolling of power toward the executive branch . . . [and] the per-
manent emergency that has melded World War II with the Cold War and the Cold
War with the war on terror (Wills 2010, 2378). Indeed, in a representative democ-
racy such as the United Statesin which by far the most extensive military opera-
tions, with no fewer than 761 bases around the world, are overseen by civilians led
by the elected president who is also the commander-in-chiefnational security
and the political instinct to carefully calibrate and frame information to maximum
public advantage are often melded together and eventually become indistinguish-
able (Hedges 2009, 144). As journalist Jacqueline Sharkey observed in her study of
U.S. military restrictions on the news media over thirty years, from Vietnam to the
military actions in Grenada, Panama, and the rst Persian Gulf War in 1991,
Information-control policies designed to protect not military security but presi-
dential approval ratings undermined . . . the right of the American people to receive
unbiased, independent accounts of military conicts, so they can pass judgment on
the civilian and military leaders who took them to war (Sharkey 1991, 40).
Each successive occupant of the White House has been more sophisticated and
aggressive at controlling the message of his administration, technologically but also
in terms of additional public relations money, personnel and outreach. For exam-
ple, in its rst term, the George W. Bush administration hired 376 additional public
affairs ofcials to package information at an annual cost of $50 million (Brune
2005). Separately, $254 million was spent on faux news contracts, nearly double
what the Clinton administration had spent during the preceding four years. Positive
video news releases about administration policies were sent out to hundreds of
commercial television stations and viewed by tens of millions of Americans, often
with no on-air identication or disclosure (Barstow and Stein 2005). In March 2003,
almost four decades after the Johnson administration had escalated the war in
Vietnam under false pretenses, the Bush administration led the United States and
several of its allies to war against Saddam Husseins Iraq, also on the basis of errone-
ous information that it had methodically propagated. According to the Center for
Public Integrity, in the two years following September 11, 2001, President George W.
Bush and seven of his administrations top ofcials made at least 935 false state-
ments about the national security threat posed by Iraq. The carefully orchestrated
campaign about Iraqs supposed weapons of mass destruction effectively galvanized
public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pre-
tenses. The cumulative effect of these incorrect, bellicose statementsamplied by
thousands of uncritical news stories and broadcastswas immense. Much of the
saturation media coverage provided additional, independent validation of the Bush
administrations misstatements about Iraq (Lewis and Reading-smith 2008).
In addition, the New York Times discovered and reported years later that the
Pentagon had quietly recruited seventy-ve retired military ofcers to work as
independent, paid consultants and as radio and television analysts. They were
secretly coached about how to make the public case for war in Iraq on the air, and
many of them also had signicant, undisclosed nancial ties to defense companies that
were beneting from the policies they were supposedly analyzing (Barstow 2008). The
broadcast media essentially ignored these revelations, neither reporting on their own
dubious use of such compromised, closely tethered talking heads nor apologizing to
the public for the gross misrepresentations they involved. Considering that most
national reporters and their news organizations were guratively embedded in ofcial
propaganda and misleading statements, what might have happened, to paraphrase
Bradlees question, if the public had discovered the truth about the actual extent of the
national security threat posed by Iraq in late 2002 instead of some years later? Two
distant quagmires, and twenty years of large-scale bloodshed in wars in Vietnam and
Iraq, might have been avoided if the American people had been better informed with
real-time truth about the specious ofcial statements, faulty logic, and muscular
manipulations of public opinion and governmental decision-making processes.
One of the most epiphanic public comments from the period of President
George W. Bushs war on terror was made by an unidentied White House ofcial,
revealing how information is managed and how the news media and the public
itself are regarded by those in power: [You journalists live] in what we call the
reality-based community. [But] thats not the way the world really works anymore.
Were an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality . . . were historys
actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do (Suskind 2004).
And yet, as aggressive as the Bush administration may have been in attempting to
dene reality, the subsequent administration of President Barack Obama may be
even more so. With sixty-nine people managing the media and the message (com-
pared to fty-two under Bush and forty-seven under Clinton), the Obama White
House press operation (which includes for the rst time an Ofce of New Media) is
the largest, most technologically advanced and most centralized in U.S. history.
Meanwhile, because of the economic disruptions that are aficting the commercial
media companies, today there are fewer reporters covering the White House, and
those who are there each day may be less relevant than their predecessors, partly
because they now have less and less time to do any original reporting. As Peter
Baker, the White House reporter for the New York Times, has complained, We are
hostages to the non-stop, never-ending, le-it-now, get-on-the-Web, get-on-the-
radio, get-on-TV media environment. All of which leads to the widespread percep-
tion among journalists such as Vanity Fairs Michael Wolff, These people in this
White House are in greater control of the media than any administration before
them (Auletta 2010; Wolff 2009).1
Setting the agenda and circumventing the news media has been the goal of
every recent U.S. presidents outreach strategy. Sidestepping full, televised news
conferences with professional journalists and choosing more easily controlled ven-
ues insteadsuch as selected public questions on the video-sharing website YouTube
without the risk of follow-upepitomizes the difference between the aura of acces-
sibility and actual accountability in the new media age (Kurtz 2010). Controlling the
message and the news media has become easier with the increasing ability of the
rst Internet president and White House to get their carefully framed information
out directly to the public via thousands of emails, blogs, and Tweets, not to mention
using the electronic bully pulpit of numerous government, party and campaign
websites; daily, televised White House press briengs; weekly radio addresses on
YouTube; produced videos on Whitehouse.gov; ofcial photos on the image and
video-hosting website Flickr; and many more.
The realities of power in a 24/7 world are that now more than ever before, pub-
lic perceptions and opinions are shaped in the rst hours of any major event. Veteran
journalist Hodding Carter, who served as assistant secretary of state for public
affairs in the administration of Jimmy Carter, has observed that if given three days
without serious challenge, the government will have set the context for an event and
can control public perception of that event (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 45). These
new communications opportunities, set against the backdrop of economically ema-
ciated media companies serving a thinner gruel of independently reported news
(compared to the occasional bisques of yesteryear), illuminate just how difcult it
is for ordinary citizens to get beyond talking points and their message, and to dis-
coverindeed, decipherimportant truths for themselves.
2. The News Media Crisis and the Decline

of the Public Sphere
The work of independent journalists is of course essential to any ostensibly free
society, and yet their working conditions have never been typical compared to those
of other professions. Besides the risk of being murdered with impunity, with most
democratic governments doing very little if anything until after it occurs, journal-
ists also face another real punishment for their truth-telling: being sued for libel and
defamation by multinational corporations, organized crime, or wealthy individuals.
Of course, journalists and their news organizations should be held civilly liable for
their conduct on the same basis as everyone else in society, but as a practical matter,
defending frivolous, nancially threatening litigation can take years, be exorbitantly
expensive, and end implausibly if the jurisdiction is inhospitable to the public scru-
tiny of those in power. Even worse, out of 168 countries recently surveyed, 158 have
criminal defamation laws, which, according to Agns Callamard, executive director
of the human rights organization Article 19, through enforced silence and impris-
onment, stie, censor and suppress freedom of expression., Defamation, both civil
and criminal, is one of the greatest threats to freedom of expression in the world
today. It is a global problem that requires global action (Article 19 2007). The daily
reality in much of the world is that journalism that speaks truth to power can
result in nancial ruin, imprisonment, or death for a reporter.
But by far the most signicant threat to independent journalism is economic.
In recent years in North America, Europe, and Japan, commercial, for-prot
journalism has endured a difcult, historic transformation. Fundamentally, the

relationship of classied and display advertising revenue to newspapers has been
drastically disrupted by new online technologies and the simultaneous, declining
interest of consumers in serious news. As a result, tens of thousands of journalists
have been laid off in the United States, where the number of newspaper editorial
staff fell by 33 percent between 1992 and 2009 (Downie Jr and Schudson 2009, 213).
With the proliferation of online news sites and increasing broadband access, young
adult citizens are increasingly getting their information digitally, via mobile phones
and otherwise. The obvious result of this hollowing out process is that there are
fewer people today to report, write, and edit original news stories about our in-
nitely more complex, dynamic world, and fewer journalists to hold those in power
accountable. Put in perspective, at the same time as the historic shrinking of news-
paper, radio, and television newsrooms across America over three decades from
1980, the number of public relations specialists and managers doubled from approx-
imately 45,000 to 90,000 people. As Robert McChesney and John Nichols (2010, 49)
have written, Even as journalism shrinks, the news will still exist. It will increas-
ingly be provided by tens of thousands of well-paid and skilled PR specialists ready
and determined to explain the world to the citizenry, in a manner that suits their
corporate and government employers. The serious news and information void is
also being lled increasingly by major nongovernment organizations (NGOs) spe-
cializing and implicitly or explicitly advocating in certain subject areas, such as the
International Crisis Group, Global Integrity, Human Rights Watch, the Natural
Resources Defense Council, and the Kaiser Health Foundations Kaiser Health News.
As the traditional, elite news organizations necessarily evolve from their conde-
scending role as gatekeepers (deciding for the public what news is t to print), the
global nonjournalism, online marketplace of ideas, and information has exploded,
though with widely varying quality and credibility of content.
Philip Meyer, professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina and author
of two seminal books, Precision Journalism in 1973 and The Vanishing Newspaper in
2004, has written that The hunter-gatherer model of journalism is no longer suf-
cient. Citizens can do their own hunting and gathering on the Internet. What they
need is somebody to add value to that information by processing itdigesting it,
organizing it, making it usable (Meyer 2008). One of the most poignant and educa-
tive moments regarding the remarkable potential of citizen-journalists and hunter-
gatherer collaboration occurred on July 7, 2005, when terrorist bombs exploded in
the London subway. Within six hours, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
had received more than 1,000 photographs, twenty video clips, 4,000 text messages,
and 20,000 emailsall from citizens. For Richard Sambrook, the director of news
there, it was a transformative illustration of the power and synergies of crowd-
sourcing when integrated with the editorial values and sensibilities of conventional
journalism: I believe that truth, accuracy, impartiality and diversity of opinion are
strengthened by being open to a wider range of opinion and perspective, brought to
us through the knowledge and understanding of our audience (Sambrook 2005).
Beyond the exigencies of breaking, daily news situations, the power and potential of
citizen muckraking, with or without collaboration with professional journalists,

remains relatively unrealizedbut it will inevitably evolve over time as part of a
new ecosystem for journalism (CPI 2000).
3. A New Journalism Ecosystem

What appears to be evolving across the world in the United States, Canada, and in
parts of Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia in direct response to the commer-
cial news media meltdown is the beginning of a new investigative journalism eco-
system, in which some of the most ambitious reporting projects will increasingly
emanate from the public realm rather than from private, commercial outlets. From
Britain to South Africa, the Philippines to Peru, Australia to the United States, phil-
anthropically supported publishing centers are being founded and staffed by pro-
fessional reporters and editors who have either lost their jobs or might do so soon,
disconcerted veterans who are excited to be doing major important reporting proj-
ects once again.2 It should be noted that nonprot journalism itself is hardly a new
phenomenon. For example, some of the most venerable media institutions in the
United States have long operated this way, including the Associated Press, National
Public Radio, and the Public Broadcasting System; well-known periodicals such as
National Geographic, Consumer Reports, Mother Jones, Foreign Affairs, and Harpers;
and the Christian Science Monitor and numerous other newspapers.
What is new is the recent proliferation of specialized, nonprot, investigative,
and public service journalism publishers online, who in many cases are working
closely in partnership with existing legacy media institutions. The commercial,
for-prot companies have smaller news-gathering capacities and less money, and
are desperately seeking serious news content at little or no cost. The investigative
nonprot organizations have plenty of high quality content but are desperately
seeking eyeballsonline visitors, page views, and trafcto their online news
sites. The two groups help and need each other in a marriage of convenience, with
the public as the prime beneciary.
The Associated Press, created back in 1846, announced in 2009 that for the
rst time, it will make investigative stories from four nonprot national news
organizationsthe Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity,
the Investigative Reporting Workshop, and ProPublicaavailable to its newspaper
clients. The two oldest investigative reporting nonprots in the United States, the
Center for Investigative Reporting in California and the Center for Public Integrity
in Washington, D.C., were separately created by journalists in 1977 and 1989.
ProPublica, based in New York, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at
American University in Washington, D.C., were separately founded in 2008. All four
organizations share their content in partnership with major national news media
outlets, from the New York Times and the Washington Post and many other newspapers
to the television news programs such as 60 Minutes, Frontline, and other major
venues at CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and other broadcast and cable television outlets.
For example, the Center for Investigative Reporting, working with WNET and
others, is reopening and investigating several cold cases from unsolved civil rights-
era murders in the South, and separately has launched its California Watch project
to investigate public issues in Americas largest state, its stories being sold to more
than three dozen news outlets. The Center for Public Integrity identified the
top twenty-ve subprime mortgage lenders in a Whos Behind the Financial
Meltdown? series of stories in partnership with several major news organizations,
and six months after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq published Windfalls of War, an
online posting of all war-related contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the political
contributions of each contractor. Some of the best investigative reporting about
federal stimulus spending amidst the recession of 2009 was carried out by ProPublica,
and it has also partnered with the PBS program Frontline and the New York Times to
investigate foreign bribery by the multinational company Siemens. The Investigative
Reporting Workshop BankTracker project, in partnership with MSNBC.com, has
been compiling and posting federal nancial data and a troubled asset ratio analysis
for every chartered bank in the United States; separately, the workshop is also copro-
ducing television documentaries with Frontline, the rst of which exposed unsafe
working conditions inside regional airline carriers.3 The AP announcement about
collaborating with four nonprot investigative centers came six months after the
December 2008 statement by the Pulitzer Prize awards committee, declaring that
the prestigious Pulitzer prizes, for the rst time since their inception in 1917, could
be awarded not just to newspapers, but other news organizations that publish only
on the Internet, which are primarily dedicated to original news reporting and cov-
erage of ongoing stories, and that adhere to the highest journalistic principles.4 In
2010, ProPublica became the rst of these investigative centers to win a Pulitzer
prize, for a story published with the New York Times.
These historically signicant developments are a direct response to the newspa-
per industrys nancial crisis and the new nonprot publishing environment. What
does all this mean? It means that, in the foreseeable future, more and more investi-
gative content from respected nonprot news organizations will likely be included
by the major media institutions in their news coverage offerings. Commercial and
noncommercial news media organizations interested in investigative and other
forms of public service journalism are increasingly collaborating and becoming
intertwined with each other. A new way of doing in-depth journalism in the United
States and elsewhere in the world is becoming increasingly common.
In recent years, as the quality and quantity of commercial news offerings have
declined, local and national philanthropic foundations have recognized that a civic
crisis of information exists. Between 2005 and mid-2009, at least 180 U.S. founda-
tions spent nearly $128 million on news and information projects, half of that for
investigative reporting by nonprot centers. And these numbers do not include
large-scale foundation and individual support given annually to public broadcasting
(Schaffer 2009). What is most interesting is that before the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989, there were only three nonprot investigative reporting entities in the world;
today there are literally dozens of them, and if professional membership and training
organizations are included, the number is over forty (Kaplan 2007). In the United
States, some nonprot reporting centers are state-based, some are university-based,
and some are both. In the latter case, college students collaborate with veteran jour-
nalists and the work is published in commercial or non-commercial outlets.
In 2009, twenty U.S. nonprot news publishers came together for three days
and issued the Pocantico Declaration, announcing that We have hereby established,
for the rst time ever, an Investigative News Network.5 Half of the groups repre-
sented had only begun since 2007. The new organization will likely grow to at least
50100 nonprot public service journalism organizations from around the world in
the foreseeable future. It is unclear whether or not the network will evolve as one of
the most important, online destinations for original, anthologized investigative
reporting content, a mecca for editorial collaboration between news organizations
across borders, or merely the rst broad-based nonprot news publishers associa-
tion assisting organizations administratively and otherwise (Lewis 2009).
The global dimension and potential of this emerging ecosystem cannot be
overstated. The Center for Public Integrity began the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalism in 1997, containing 100 preeminent reporters from fty
countries on six continents who have produced cross-border content on everything
from cigarette smuggling to the privatization of water, climate change lobbying
around the world, and the proliferation of private military companies.(Lewis 2009)
It was the rstand remains the onlyworking network of respected journalists
who develop and publish international investigative stories about the most compel-
ling public interest issues of the time. It will grow and, via the centers website,
publish more frequently. Meanwhile, regional and subject-oriented reporting net-
works are also evolving in Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa.
Another sign of the coalescing momentum for cross-border cooperation is the cre-
ation of the Global Investigative Journalism Network among different nonprot
investigative journalism organizations to support training and share information
but not to produce contentat international conferences. Six multi-day, multi-
panel global conferences have been held in Copenhagen in 2001 and 2003, Amsterdam
in 2005, Toronto in 2007, Lillehammer, Norway in 2008, and Geneva in 2010, cumu-
latively attended by more than 3,000 journalists from eighty-seven countries, with
Kiev designated as the next conference site.6
4. Conclusion
Where all of this synergy and collaboration will lead, and whether new economic
models can be created to help make this fragile ecosystem more nancially sustain-
able, are unclear, but these developments are unprecedented and full of promise.
The American journalist A. J. Liebling once wrote that freedom of the press is guar-
anteed only to those who own one.7 For some of the boldest members of the cur-
rent diaspora of immensely talented journalists with nowhere to work, starting a
nonprot, online news site is vastly more appealing than the bleaker specter of leav-
ing the profession itself. The editorial freedom, excitement, and satisfaction of a
journalist creating and running his or her own news organization are palpable
and the editorial, administrative, and nancial management responsibilities are for-
midable. The ultimate winner, of course, is the public, supplied with independent,
in-depth journalism that would not otherwise exist, in multimedia, innitely more
accessible forms.
As veteran journalists Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel (2007, 255) observed,
Civilization has produced one idea more powerful than any other: the notion that
people can govern themselves. And it has created a largely unarticulated theory of
information to sustain that idea, called journalism. The two rise and fall together.
Both ideas have evolved and been applied in various ways since the late eighteenth
century throughout the world, and they will continue to be so. But neither can sur-
vive without the publics capacity to discover and understand the real-time truth
about those who occupy positions of power. Civil societies must do everything they
can to preserve and enlarge the public space for independent, investigative journal-
ism in all of its evolving forms. For as Justice Hugo Black wrote in the historic
Pentagon Papers Supreme Court decision, Only a free and unrestrained press can
effectively expose deception in government (Kenworthy et al. 1971, 725).
NOTES
1. The White House staff numbers come from political scientist Martha Joynt Kumar,
who has tracked presidents and the press for four decades. See http://marthakumar.com.
2. For a complete, updated, global list of nonprot investigative news publishers, with
vital organizational information and links, see The New Journalism Ecosystem at www
.investigativereportingworkshop.org/ilab.
3. See www.cironline.org, www.publicintegrity.org, www.propublica.org, and www
.investigativereportingworkshop.org.
4. See www.pulitzer.org/les/PressRelease2008PulitzerPrizes.pdf.
5. Available at http://cpublici.wordpress.com.
6. See www.globalinvestigativejournalism.org.
7. Lieblings well-known aphorism, among others, can be found at http://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/AJ_Liebling.
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.org/new_media_makers.pdf.
Seldes, G. 1985. The Great Thoughts. New York: Ballantine.
Sharkey, J. 1991. Under Fire: Military Restrictions on the Media from Grenada to the Persian
Gulf. Washington, D.C.: Center for Public Integrity.
Suskind, R. 2004. Without a Doubt. New York Times Magazine, October 17.
Wills, G. 2010. Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State. New
York: Penguin.
Wolff, M. 2009. The Power and the Story. Vanity Fair, July: 4851.
chapter 29
CIVIC KNOWLEDGE
peter levine
Civil society and knowledge are connected in three major ways. First, in order for
a civil society to function well, its citizens must know certain things.1 They must
have skills (know-how) plus facts or concepts (knowledge that), plus knowl-
edge that enables them to negotiate their views of right and wrong. Second, civil
society generates knowledge, including certain kinds of knowledge that cannot be
produced by other sectors or institutions. For example, science cannot produce
knowledge of what is right or good in the way that citizens can when they are orga-
nized appropriately in civil society. The relationship between civil society and
knowledge is reciprocal, with each contributing to the other. Third, civil society
plays an essential role in preserving and nurturing the institutions that produce
valuable knowledge. Knowledge is a public good, because excluding people from its
benets is difcult and expensive once it has been produced. Generating and pro-
tecting any public good raises special challenges that civil society is well equipped to
address. In short, civil society both requires and produces knowledge, and protects
and strengthens the conditions under which knowledge as a public good is
produced.
1. Civic Knowledge as Knowledge that

All Citizens Should Have
The knowledge that citizens need to participate in civil society depends on what we
consider the role of civil society to be, which depends in turn on fundamental nor-
mative commitments. The libertarian Loren Lomasky presumes that one must be
civic knowledge 363
constrained by others legitimate rights, but how one comports oneself beyond
that point isif not exclusively, then predominantlythe agents own business. In
this view, civil society is the set of voluntary institutions and public forums in which
people advise, cajole, [and] remonstrate with others to act well, given that they
should be free to act as they wish (Lomasky 1999, 2778).
In marked contrast, Henry Milner admires Nordic social democracies in
which the state redistributes and regulates the economy to achieve equality of
welfare. For Milner, civil society is the set of institutions that educate and moti-
vate working-class people to press the state to redistribute welfare effectively and
fairly. The state is the guarantor of justice, but an independent civil society is
essential for holding the state accountable. In the Scandinavian model that he
recommends, an informed population supports policies that reinforce egalitar-
ian outcomes (Milner 2002, 10).
Once the normative purposes of civil society are settled, the levels and types of
knowledge that citizens must possess for civil society to function become empirical
questions. For example, Milner argues that citizens must have knowledge of politi-
cal issues and processes. They must know where candidates or parties stand on
issues and what tangible economic impact these positions will have. Such knowl-
edge must be evenly distributed by social class, gender, race, and other demographic
categories, or else participation will be unequal and democratic outcomes will be
unjust. Civil society enters the picture mainly as the venue through which citizens
gain political knowledge so that they can vote and otherwise inuence public policy.
For example, newspapers, labor unions, political parties, and social movements
impart political information and ideas to their members.
Lomaskys account of civil society as a voluntary school of virtue suggests dif-
ferent knowledge requirements, emphasizing personal good behavior and the
ability to teach it to others. Similarly writes Richard Madsen, In the Confucian
vision . . . human ourishing can occur only if social relations have a proper moral
basis. This means that people have to learn to discern what is the right way to behave,
and that for the most part they voluntarily act accordingly. Neither pure self-
interest nor pervasive state coercion is compatible with ourishing. Thus the
Confucian project requires moral cultivation at all levels of society. This cultivation
is to develop the mind-and-heart, an inextricable combination of mental and emo-
tional faculties. Although the extended family provides some of the necessary edu-
cation, leadership also requires experience in community organizations such as
temple groups, theater associations, and guilds. To fulll the purposes of self-cul-
tivation, these institutions would have to be seen as educational, in the broadest
sense of the word (Madsen 2002, 1967). Note Madsens use of the words discern,
learn, mental and emotional faculties, and education. Clearly, the Confucian
model makes strong demands on citizens knowledge, but in a way that emphasizes
moral reasoning and character more than facts about the formal political system.
In Islamic societies, the body of trained religious scholars (the ulama), claims
legitimate inuence independent of the state precisely because of the knowledge it
possesses. The ulama is one important antecedent of Islamic civil society, with
knowledge an essential civic value. Secular intellectuals in Muslim societies have

frequently contested the sole right of the ulama to inuence public opinion. Today,
as Masoud Kamali writes, information technology is inclusive and increases the
range of participants in discussions about Islamic values and practices and provides
an opportunity to educate people who are not religious scholars to increasingly
contribute to discussions (Kamali 2001, 479). The vibrant blogosphere in countries
like Egypt (where there were at least 1,400 blogs in 2007) reects the growth of civil
society (Radsch 2008), yet there is clear continuity with the classical Muslim idea
that knowledgeable people should inuence public opinion and the state.
In the United States, there is empirical evidence that certain values and skills are
necessary, or at least helpful, to sustain a system that is moderately egalitarian, decen-
tralized, and protective of minority rights. For example, Verba, Schlozman, and Brady
(1995) argue that people need resources to participate in a political system that makes
participation optional, and that these resources are unequally distributed, leading to
inequitable outcomes. Among these resources are civic skills, which include the abil-
ity to write a letter, attend a meeting and take part in its decisions, plan or chair a
meeting, and give a presentation or speech. These skills can be understood as knowl-
edge in the sense of how-to, but they probably also depend on knowledge of specic
topics. For example, one cannot write an effective political letter without understand-
ing the political system and the issue that one wants to address.
Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996, 221, 224, 243, 253) nd that knowledge of politics
strongly predicts voter turnout, and knowledge of civil rights and political liberties
correlates with tolerance. Thus, if a good civil society is one in which citizens toler-
ate one another and participate by voting, then knowledge of civil rights and poli-
tics are important preconditions. Nonpolitical civic participation, such as
volunteering and belonging to associations, is not as clearly connected to knowl-
edge, but research does show that residents who engage in their communities tend
to seek information from high-quality news sources, such as daily newspapers.
Obtaining information about current events probably provides relevant facts and
motivations to participate in local volunteering efforts and associations; in turn,
such participation encourages citizens to seek more information (Shah, McLeod,
and Yoon 2001, 485).
Knowledge that is necessary for participation can be taught. For example,
KidsVoting USA provides curricula, materials, and professional development for
high school students and has been well evaluated. The program raises students
knowledge of politics (measured by current factual questions); reduces gaps in
knowledge between the most and least knowledgeable students; and increases con-
sistency between students opinions on issues and their own voting behavior
(Wackman and Meirick 2004; McDevitt and Kiousis 2004; McDevitt and Kiousis
2006). Perhaps the most intriguing result is that parents are more likely to discuss
politics and current events if their children are enrolled in Kids Votinga trickle-up
effect (McDevitt, Kiousis, Wu, Losch, and Ripley 2003).
Kids Voting USA is a school curriculum, but institutions like newspapers and
other news sources, labor unions, politically engaged religious congregations and
civic knowledge 365
social movements also have educative functions. The same can be said of formal
political processes, such as elections and trials. John Stewart Mill argued that jury
service, municipal elections, and the conduct of industrial and philanthropic
enterprises by voluntary associations were valuable because they taught adults
civic knowledgestrengthening their active faculties, exercising their judgment,
and giving them a familiar knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left
to deal (Mill 1956, 1334). A recent controlled study of jury service in the United
States found that participants became more engaged in other aspects of civic life
such as votingunless the jury failed to reach a verdict (Gastil, Deess, and Weiser
2002). The authors explanation involved efcacy: by participating in a weighty
and successful civic act such as a jury trial, people become more condent about
their own civic potential. But Mill may also be correct that civic engagement deep-
ens knowledge that assists with civic engagement, especially if one includes strength-
ened faculties and better judgment as forms of knowledge.
Studies that use actions (such as voting) as the dependent variables ignore an
important normative question: when is engagement good? After all, Mussolini and
his allies had civic skills, knew a great deal about Italian politics and society, and had
substantial political impact. Their example is consistent with the studies cited above
that show strong links between knowledge and participation, but it does not dem-
onstrate that participation is desirable. One might therefore add that citizens should
know right from wrong and justice from injustice (and act consistently with that
knowledge).

Some Citizens Need
The argument thus far suggests that desirable forms of civic knowledge range from
concrete civic skills (such as chairing a meeting), to a grasp of laws and rights, to
awareness of current events, candidates, and ideologies, to moral knowledge or
maturity that allows one to explore different interpretations of right and wrong.
Historical, economic, scientic, and cultural knowledge are also valuable. For exam-
ple, one cannot act effectively or responsibly on environmental issues without
understanding biology, nor can one address racial tensions without knowing how
they arose in history. These demands seem daunting, and surveys show that citizens
in all the industrialized democracies are woefully ignorant of many important facts
and concepts, but a division of labor can serve civil society, just as it serves a modern
economy. Not everyone needs to know everything. In a pluralist society, individuals
can specialize in particular issuessome working on environmental protection
while others are concerned with spiritual matters or poverty. Moreover, civic asso-
ciations have leaders as well as rank-and-le members, and the former need differ-
ent knowledge to the latter.
Whereas the academic study of civic engagement investigates the knowledge

that everyone needs, the eld of leadership focuses on the more specialized skills
and knowledge that individuals need when they assume leadership positions.
Everyone should be able to vote, but only some people need to be able to negotiate
with legislators. Everyone needs a general grasp of legal rights, but only some people
need to know how to litigate. Everyone should be able to communicate effectively
with strangers, but only some must be effective on national television. Furthermore,
ones need for specialized factual knowledge rises as one becomes more inuential
within a movement. Members of environmental organizations need only a general
commitment to policy, whereas leaders need to understand all the intricacies
involved.
The leaders of successful social movements such as Mahatma Gandhi and
Martin Luther King provide striking examples of skill and knowledge. The conven-
tional view holds that the success of social movements depends on resources and
conditions, not on the skills of those who lead them. But Peter Ackerman is one of
several scholars who are revising that view, holding that strategic choices determine
success and that leaders may either have or lack the skills to make good choices.
Such skills are a form of knowledge (Ackerman 2007). Marshall Ganz holds that
mastery of specic skillsor how to strategizeis relevant, but so is access to local
knowledge of the constituencies, opponents, and third parties with which one is
interacting (Ganz 2005, 220).
3. Civic Knowledge as Knowledge that a

Civil Society Needs
No individual can absorb all the information and knowledge that is accumulated in
a traditional town archive, the clipping le of a conventional newspaper, or the vault
of a local museumlet alone the vast expanses of the World Wide Web. Yet civil
society is better off when such information is extensive, accessible, and secure. To
hold a democratic state accountable and to accomplish voluntary collaborative
projects, citizens need the opportunity to nd data, knowledge, ideas, and interpre-
tations on matters of shared concern: I dont need to use such information if some-
one in my community can use it when it is needed.
Ostrom and Hess note that knowledge encompasses discrete artifacts (such as
books, articles, maps, databases, and web pages), facilities (such as universities,
schools, libraries, computers, and laboratories), and ideas (such as concepts, inter-
pretations, hypotheses, and ndings) (Ostrom and Hess 2007, 47). Thomas Jefferson
already realized that ideas are pure public goods, for he who receives an idea from
me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lites his taper at
mine, receives light without darkening me (quoted in Lessig 1999, 132). Knowledge
civic knowledge 367
artifacts and facilities are usually exclusive (my use of a computer terminal blocks
yours), yet they can be sharedas Benjamin Franklin demonstrated when he
founded the rst public lending library.
The main challenges facing public goods are rst, that individuals may not be
motivated to produce things that benet everyone (they can free-ride on others),
and second, that individuals, rms, and governments may be tempted to privatize
public goods for their own advantage. Today, many knowledge artifacts that once
would have been exclusive can be digitized, posted online, and thereby turned into
public goods. On the other hand, knowledge can be privatized and monetized, as
when intellectual property is over-protected or when university-based research is
inuenced by corporate funding. It is also possible for knowledge to be underpro-
duced, if there are insufcient incentives to develop and give it away. For example,
too little research is conducted on diseases that affect the poorest people in the
world.
Civic knowledgeknowledge of relevance to public or community issues
does not come into existence automatically, nor is it safe from antisocial behavior.
The documents in a town archive, the reporting that lls a newspaper, and the arti-
facts in a local museum all take money and training to produce, catalog, and con-
serve. Once produced, these goods are fragile. They can literally decay, and they are
subject to manipulation or inappropriate privatization. For example, access to state
court decisions in the United States is provided exclusively by private rms, mainly
the West Publishing Company and LEXIS/NEXIS. The publics interest in main-
taining affordable and convenient access to public law would be undermined if
these rms overcharged or provided poor quality information.
In 1998, with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Congress extended
most existing copyrights in the United States for 95 years. Congress thus granted
monopoly ownership to works that had been created as long ago as 1903requiring
anyone who wanted to use these works to locate the copyright holder, seek permis-
sion, and pay whatever fee is demandedand asserted a right to extend copyrights
as frequently and for as long as it liked. In his dissenting opinion to the court deci-
sion that upheld this law, Supreme Court Justice Breyer wrote, It threatens to inter-
fere with efforts to preserve our Nations historical and cultural heritage and efforts
to use that heritage, say, to educate our Nations children (537 U.S. 26, 2003, 26). If
Justice Breyer was correct, the Sonny Bono Act was an example of knowledge of
civic value being turned from a public good into a private commodity by state
power at the behest of private interests.
Given such threats, civil society can preserve and enhance civic knowledge by
playing at least three roles. First, advocacy for policies that benet the knowledge
commons including the protection of free speech, appropriate copyright laws,
public subsidies for libraries and archives, and public funds to digitize archives.
Benecial policies are public goods that often lose out to private interests that prot
more tangibly from selsh policies. For example, everyone benets from free access
to historical texts, but a few companies prot much more substantially from their
own copyrights. Independent, nonprot associations can rectify this imbalance by
recruiting voters, activists, and donors to promote the public interest in govern-
ment. The American Library Association, for example, has been a strong advocate
for knowledge as a public good.
Second, the provision of direct services by civil society groups. Many valuable
archives and collections are funded and run by private, voluntary associations and
their own donors and volunteers. Although the state has a role in producing and
collecting knowledge, a state monopoly would be dangerous. And third, education,
broadly dened. People do not automatically acquire an understanding and appre-
ciation of valuable civic knowledge, nor the skills necessary to produce and con-
serve such knowledge. Each generation must transmit to the next the skills,
motivations, and understanding necessary to preserve the knowledge commons.
Again, government-run schools may have a role in this educational process, but
they should not monopolize it. A more pluralistic and independent education sys-
tem depends on nonprot associations that recruit and train people to be commu-
nity historians, archivists, naturalists, artists, or documentary lmmakers.

Civil Society Generates
Most knowledge is created collaboratively. Scientists and other scholars collaborate
on research projects and build on prior studies. Many scientists and scholars work
for nonprot institutions, such as universities and museums, and discuss and col-
laborate within voluntary professional associations. Because science and scholar-
ship are collaborative, voluntary, and supported by nonprot institutions, one
might conclude that almost all knowledge is generated by civil society.
But that broad account would obscure important distinctions. Some knowl-
edge is created by people who play specialized, professional roles. Scientists, for
example, typically hold advanced degrees, receive salaries for working in scarce and
competitive research or teaching positions, undergo various kinds of formal review
(from tenure hearings to human subject review boards), and use funds from grants
or contracts to collect and analyze data. Their training, funding, obligations, and
guild-like organization separate them from civil society as a whole.
The more relevant question is what kinds of knowledge citizens can create col-
laboratively, if one denes citizens as all members of a civil society? Civic knowl-
edge, in this sense, should be distinguished from knowledge that people create when
they hold specialized professional roles. Civic knowledge should also be distin-
guished from knowledge that individuals create and use privately. Three forms of
citizen-created knowledge seem especially important. First, empirical information
and analysis can be collected or generated collaboratively by people who are not
paid or credentialed as researchers. This was always possible: amateur botanists,
civic knowledge 369
genealogists, lexicographers, musicians, and many others contributed to the knowl-

edge commons of the past. Yet the barriers to producing truly original and lasting
work were high, and often amateurs invested substantial proportions of their time
and energy to gain skills that made them comparable to paid professionals, and for
that reason, they tended to be wealthy. Todays digital networks lower barriers to
entry by making communication and publication extremely cheap, and by allowing
large research projects to be broken into manageable parts.
Thus, for example, the French Encyclopedia of 17511772 was a major contribu-
tion to Enlightenment civil society. Not only did it contain knowledge as a public
good, but it specically expanded civil rights and liberties by promoting liberal
positions contrary to absolute monarchism, the army, and the church. It had twen-
ty-eight main authors, brilliant philosophes including Voltaire and Diderot, most of
whom were amateurs in the sense that they were not paid to writebut they were a
privileged and exceptional few. A new copy of the rst edition cost about as much
money as an unskilled laborer earned in sixteen months of work.2 In contrast,
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has about 318 times more articles and roughly
85,000 active contributors, is completely free for anyone with Internet access, and
expands freedom not because of a particular editorial commitment to liberal val-
ues, but because it is a massive, uncensored, public forum. Although it was set up
for traditional encyclopedia articles, users now create live news pages as well. For
example, the terrorist bombings in London in 2005 were tracked in real time on a
Wikipedia page created within minutes of the rst explosion (Shirky 2008, 116).
Wikipedia announces, Visitors do not need specialized qualications to con-
tribute. Wikipedias intent is to have articles that cover existing knowledge, not cre-
ate new knowledge. This means that people of all ages and cultural and social
backgrounds can write Wikipedia articles. Most of the articles can be edited by any-
one with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link. Anyone is
welcome to add information, cross-references, or citations, as long as they do so
within Wikipedias editing policies and to an appropriate standard.3
Wikipedia is not evidently better than the French Encyclopedia: the former
included many groundbreaking articles that changed disciplines and are still read
today, whereas Wikipedia announces that its intent [is not to] create new knowl-
edge. But Wikipedia is a valuable resource that depends on citizen work. Like many
other online tools and sites, it demonstrates that sheer numbers of people can gen-
erate useful knowledge that surpasses small numbers of experts. Another example
would be search engines like Google that can identify material across an enormous
range of topics, something that would be impossible for professional editors to
achieve (Shirky 2008, 49).
A second form of knowledge that citizens can contribute is knowledge about
their own needs, problems, goals, and interests. Democratic societies are supposed
to pursue policies that people want (with appropriate regard for minorities as well
as majorities). People know their own situations best; as John Dewey wrote, The
man who wears the shoe best knows where it pinches. In order to obtain just social
outcomes, decision makers need to know what whole categories of people want and
need. This is not easy. Elections convey relatively little information because voters
must choose from nite lists of candidates, parties, or referenda. Surveys, focus
groups, ethnographies, and willingness to pay experiments are among the tech-
niques used to glean information about what people want, but all these methods are
subject to inadvertent bias by researchers and deliberate manipulation by the insti-
tutions that commission them. The latter problem is most evident in authoritarian
regimes, which systematically distort evidence about what people want. As Clay
Shirky (2008, 163) notes, people not only need to know things; they must also know
that everyone else knows these things, and that everyone knows what everyone else
knows. For example, communist East Germany fell apart not when everyone knew
that its system had failed, but when everyone could see that everyone else knew the
same thing. Transparent public knowledge is a precondition for popular action, and
is what authoritarian governments try to block by suppressing freedom of associa-
tion and speech. The same danger is not absent in liberal societies.
Thus it is essential that many citizens should freely express their own values,
goals, and concerns. People express what they want in many forms, including pri-
vate conversations, consumer choices, protests, letters, songs, prayers, and gifts.
They may even express their wants by refusing to act: silent noncompliance and
foot-dragging are traditional modes of resistance by poor people around the world
(Scott 1990, 198). Civil society plays an essential role in translating private goals
and preferences into public opinion that canin a democratic and liberal state
inuence major institutions. In the terminology of Jrgen Habermas (1985,
113197) the lifeworld consists of our ordinary, shared values and commitments,
which develop in the course of daily life and face-to-face human interaction. The
system means the formal processes by which governments, corporations, and
other powerful actors allocate goods and rights. In a legitimate society, public
debate and discussion improve the tacit norms of the lifeworld by addressing con-
icts within the society and encouraging people to justify their beliefs to their
peers. The results of this discussion become explicit as public opinion and inu-
ence the system. In practical terms, this process requires civic institutions, ranging
from the coffee houses and newspapers of the Enlightenment to the activist groups
and online social networks of today (Habermas 1991). Some institutions of civil
society arise to make explicit, public claims on behalf of their own members.
Interest groups and activist lobbies are examples. Some institutions attempt to cre-
ate more or less neutral forums for discussionfor example, the opinion page of
a traditional metropolitan daily newspaper or a civic lecture series. And some
institutions simply make manifest the existence of social groups that have a claim
to be recognized. For example, the mission statement of HispanicMoslems.com is
to show the diversity of the Muslim community by educating Muslims and non-
Muslims about Hispanic and Latino Muslims.4 Since Hispanics are often pre-
sumed to be Christian, and Muslims are often presumed to come from the Middle
East, Hispanic Muslims need an association to obtain recognition, which is a pre-
condition for being included in public dialog and inuencing public opinion
(Warren 2000, 132).
civic knowledge 371
Habermass theoretical perspective provides the basis for making normative

judgments. Civil society is most helpful for generating knowledge about what peo-
ple want and need when it is diverse, free, equitable, and anchored in the authentic
values of the lifeworld. It is threatened when the systemdominated by money,
wealth, and strategic communicationcolonizes it. When the system dominates,
public opinion is not true knowledge of what people want, but the spurious result
of money and power.
Knowing what people want is insufcient for good decision making; for deci-
sions also involve negotiations about what is right and just. At least since Socrates,
theorists have searched for a technique that would determine what one should do,
given an accurate description of the context plus valid rules of moral inference. Two
modern secular techniques for this purpose are utilitarianism and Kantianism.
Utilitarianism states that the right thing to do is that which would maximize the
totality of human welfare. Although predicting the impact of any policy on objec-
tive net welfare is methodologically complex, utilitarians have developed methods
for estimating welfare impacts, especially economic cost/benet analysis. In con-
trast, Kantianism states that the right thing to do is that which is consistent with a
general rule, binding on all. John Rawls (2005) applied Kants position to politics by
arguing that what is just is what one would decide under a veil of ignorance about
his or her own social situation.
Although quite different in content, these techniques share the hope that peo-
ple need not debate moral issues endlessly or face perennial conicts of values
and interests. Instead, these techniques promise a right answer that can be known
by an individual armed with adequate information and the correct method. But
that hope has been widely assailed. Utilitarianism is a minority viewpoint among
philosophers, who have attacked it for, among other things, ignoring rights and
presuming that one can compare welfare among individuals. Kantianism also has
its critics, and even most of its proponents concede that it will not generate con-
crete decisions in many cases. Kant himself wrote that we need the power of
judgment sharpened by experience to tell us how to apply moral laws to particu-
lar cases (Kant 1991, ix), and Rawls insisted that reasoning under the veil of igno-
rance could determine only very general rules such as those found in national
constitutions. Ordinary decisions require public deliberation (Rawls 2005,
212254).
If there is no technique for determining justice, then there is no escape from a
permanent discussion among people who differ in their interests, values, and prin-
ciples. But that discussion can be conducted in ways that are better or worse.
Proponents of deliberative democracy advocate that moral discussions should be
as equitable and free as possible. Participants should genuinely seek what is right,
which involves listening to other perspectives and being open to change, rather
than strategically seeking goals that they held before entering the discussion. Such
conversations are most likely to occur within the institutions of civil society, rather
than in markets, bureaucracies, or private homes. Indeed, some have dened civil
society as the private (nonstate) space in which individuals without ofcial status
can communicate and attempt to persuade one another through argumentation

and criticism about matters of general concern (Cohen 1999, 5585). In practice,
public argumentation combines questions of abstract principle with expressions
of personal and group identity and interest, because these matters cannot be
sharply separated for human beings who are embodied creatures in specic cul-
tural contexts.
Michael Sandel famously wrote that, when politics goes well, we can know a
good in common that we cannot know alone (Sandel 1998, 183). Sandel argued that
the characteristic knowledge that we must obtain together is moral knowledge,
knowledge of the good. We need others to know it because moral judgments are
heavily experiential, because any individuals perspective is biased and limited, and
because there is no impartial algorithm or method that can identify the good for
everyone involved.
5. Conclusion
Civic knowledge means the knowledge that people create, use, and preserve when
they act as members of a civil society. A successful civil society requires a demand-
ing range of these forms of knowledge, but fortunately, citizens can share the bur-
dens that are involved in making and in using them. Because public issues and
problems have moral dimensions, it is important for people to use knowledge delib-
eratively, in constructive and equitable discussions. The conditions that allow ade-
quate levels of knowledge to be produced, shared, and applied do not arise
automatically. The institutions and networks of civil society are also responsible for
creating those conditions and protecting them against constant threats from both
the market and the state.
NOTES
1. Here I dene a citizen as a member of society, without assuming that they live in a
nation-state or that citizenship is dened by legal rights.
2. The lowest subscription price was 546 francs (Watts 1958, 348). The market price of
unskilled labor was 1.25 livres or francs per day (from the Global Price and Income History
Group: http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/data.php#france).
3. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About.
4. See http://hispanicmuslims.com/mission.html.
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part vi
THE ACHIEVEMENTS
OF CIVIL SOCIETY
chapter 30
CIVIL SOCIETY
AND DEMOCRACY
mark e. warren
The two decades leading up to the end of the twentieth century saw a remarkable
growth in the numbers of regimes that conduct politics through competitive elec-
tions. As of 2009, 116 countries counted as electoral democraciesslightly down from
the high of 123 counted in 2006, but considerably more than the 69 registered two
decades before (Freedom House 2010). But competitive electoral systems, though nec-
essary for democracy, are not sufcient. Many new democraciescountries that have
adopted the institution of competitive electionsfail to produce governments that
are representative and responsive to those who fall within their jurisdictions. Many of
the established democracies suffer from decits of trust and citizen disaffection, leav-
ing decisions to be made by elites under pressure from well-organized interests.
Can electoral democracies be deepened in such a way that they function to pro-
duce governments that are representative of, and responsive to, those within their
jurisdictions? To ask this question is to ask about the ways in which people self-
organize, such that they can form their interests and opinions, convey them to gov-
ernments, hold governments accountable, and engage in collective actions oriented
towards common goods. Elections are necessary enabling institutions. But robust
civil societies provide the contexts within which elections function democratically
(Dahl 2000). Indeed, the correlation between robust civil societies and functioning
democracies has been so striking that we have come to understand them as reinforc-
ing one another (Cohen and Arato 1992; Putnam 1993; Edwards 2009).
Civil society, as I shall use the term here, is the domain of society organized
through associative media, in contrast to organization through legally empowered
administration (the core of state power and organization), or market transactions
mediated by money (the core of economic power and organization) (Warren 2001;
378 the achievements of civil society
see also Cohen and Arato 1992; Habermas 1996, ch. 8; cf. Alexander 2006). Civil
society is the domain of purpose-built, normatively justied associations. It is for
this reason that civil society is as much a core feature of democracy as are competi-
tive elections: it is through association that people organize their interests, values,
and opinions and act upon them, some directlyas in religious and sporting
associationsand some indirectly, as representations that organize public opinion,
mobilize votes and other forms of pressure, and function to dene the people
whom a state can represent, and to whom the formal institutions of democracy can
respond (Urbinati and Warren 2008). No civil society, no peoplewhich is why
the twenty-six or so countries that Freedom House (2010) lists as electoral democ-
racies but not as free fail to function democratically. They lack the political pro-
tections for association, speech, and conscience that enable the modes of
self-organization necessary for democratic institutions to function.
These democratic functions of civil society are contingent rather than neces-
sary. Famously, civil society appeared to be robust in Weimar Germany before the
rise of the Nazis (Berman 1997). And on the heels of enthusiasm for civil society in
the 1990s, scholars pointed out that many kinds of civil society organization are bad
for democracy since they can cultivate hatred, violence, and sectarianism (Chambers
and Kopstein 2001). Some kinds of association underwrite networks that aid and
abet political corruption, support clientelist political arrangements, and provide
additional political advantage those who are already possess the advantages of
income and education (Warren 2008).
From the standpoint of democratic theory, can we sharpen our focus? Can we
distinguish the kinds, dimensions, and functions of civil society that are likely to
deepen democracy from those that are not? We can, but to do so we must develop
less abstract conceptions of both democracy and civil society, a task that is addressed
in section 1 of this chapter. Section 2 analyzes the potential contributions of civil
society to democracy, while section 3 distinguishes features of associations that are
likely to determine their democratic contributions. Section 4 introduces ecological
considerations by framing the question in terms of the optimal mix of kinds of
association from the perspective of democracy.
1. Democracy and the All-Affected

Principle
The potential roles of civil society in deepening democracy come into sharpest
focus when institutional denitions of democracysay, as constituted by competi-
tive electionsare subordinated to a normative conception that focuses on what
democracies should accomplish. Democratic theorists increasingly converge on the
view that democracy requires that all those potentially affected by collective decisions
have opportunities to affect these decisions in ways proportional to the potential effects
civil society and democracy 379
(Goodin 2007; Habermas 1994; Young 2000). The institutions, organizations, and
practices that comprise democracy, then, would be those that enable those who are
potentially affected by collective decisions to have opportunities to inuence them.
Democratic theorists increasingly opt for this generic, normative conception of
democracy for two reasons. First, institutional denitions of democracy conate
ideals of what democracy should achieve with institutional means for achieving
them, thus making it impossible to judge particular arrangements to be more or less
democratic. Distinguishing an ideal of democracy from its typical institutionssay,
kinds of electoral democracy or deliberative forumsallows us to judge these insti-
tutions to be more or less democratic.
The second reason for preferring a normative conception of democracy is that the
sites of collective decision making in todays societies are now so diverse that traditional
sites of democracyparticularly elections based on territorial constituenciesare
only one kind among many (Rehfeld 2005; Saward 2006). Not only are individuals
affected by multiple levels of governments, but also by other kinds of collectivities,
including corporations, religious organizations, schools, and other kinds of organiza-
tions. Moreover, because modern societies involve extensive divisions of labor and
extensive interdependencies in areas such as security, environment, and migration,
individuals are subject to what James Bohman (2007) has termed chains of affected-
ness that are global in scope and extensive in time and space.
For democracy to have meaning under these circumstances, it should refer to
individuals means and capacities to exert inuence on these chains of affectedness,
should they decide to do so. And for inuence to have meaning under these condi-
tions, we must also think about multiple possibilities beyond the democratic exer-
cise of voting for governmentswhich, although it will always remain a foundational
element of democracy, cannot encompass the many ways in which individuals are
affected by collectivities. Thus, if we are to identify the democratic possibilities
entailed by the contemporary conditions of politics, we must also consider poten-
tial avenues of inuence more generically and abstractly.
As a general matter, individual inuence can vary in two dimensions. In one
dimension, inuence can be directive or protective. Inuence is directive when indi-
viduals exercise inuence over collective decisions, as when they vote or participate
in a decision-making venue. Inuence is protective when individuals have the power
to resist harms generated by other collectivities, as when they protest against collec-
tive decisions made elsewhere, or exercise veto powers, or organize to escape the
potentially damaging consequences of a collective arrangement. That is, democracy
does not necessarily mean that everyone is involved in making collective decisions
that is an impossible image of democracy under contemporary circumstances.
Democracy can also mean that individuals have the powers to resist harms to self-
determination, producing what contemporary republicans call nondomination
(Pettit 1997; Bohman 2007).
Individual inuence can also vary from directly exercised to representative.
Individuals directly inuence decisions when they vote in referendums, or participate in
a neighborhood organization. They exercise inuence through representatives when
they vote for representatives, or join organizations that pressure, protest, sue, delib-
erate, or otherwise exercise inuence on their behalf (Saward 2006). Because com-
plex societies de-center sites of collective action, they open many new opportunities
for direct democracy through civil society organizations (Warren 2002). At the same
time, owing to the multiplication of inuences in complex societies, most inuences
will be exercised through representativesnot simply elected representatives, but
also interest and advocacy groups as well as other kinds of civil society actors.
In complex societies, then, democracy refers to the multiple means that indi-
viduals might use to affect collective decisionsnot just voting, but also organiza-
tion, advocacy, networking and deliberation, that may occur at multiple points in
decision-making processes, from diffuse inuences on public opinion to highly
focused participatory inputs into specic decisions. And, indeed, in addition to the
dramatic expansion of electoral democracy over the last three decades, we have also
witnessed a rapid increase in social movements, interest groups, watchdog and
oversight organizations, intensive media campaigns, network organizations, and
new forms of direct action (Warren 2003; Rosanvallon 2008). Governments increas-
ingly respond to these developments with the use of referendums, the devolution
and de-concentration of decision making, new forms of network and collaborative
governance, public deliberations and forms, stakeholder meetings, and other kinds
of devices that often have little relationship to the institutions of electoral democ-
racy (Warren 2009; Edwards 2009; Leighninger 2006).
Far from representing the failure of electoral institutions, the fact that much
political work now takes place in other locations represents their success. Electoral
institutions have had their most important impacts within constitutional regimes
that protect and enable sites of collective organization, decision, and action within
society. Over time, these kinds of arrangements disperse the powers and capacities
for collective action, in this way transforming the very nature of governing from a
sovereign centre. They reect increasingly condent and capable citizenries, many
with increasingly post-material sensibilities that include greater interests in self-
government (Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Dalton 2007; Warren 2003). Some of the
political responses to these trends, such as increasing reliance on processes of
governancepartnerships between governments and civil society organizations
are incremental and experimental. Others are world-historical, such the European
Union.
2. The Democratic Possibilities

of Civil Society Associations
What all these developments have in common is that democracy has become ever
more reliant on civil society for its realization. We can further specify these depen-
dencies by classifying the potentially democratic effects of the associations in three
broad classes, distinguished by level of analysis (Warren 2001; Edwards 2009). First,
democracies depend on individuals with capacities for democratic citizenship. In a
democracy, individuals should be able to understand and articulate their interests
and values, have enough information and education to relate their interests and
values to sites of collective decision and organization, have the political capacities to
participate in collective decisions, and possess the civic dispositions that enable
them to do so in ways consistent with democratic ways of making decisions: persua-
sion and voting. As Tocqueville famously noted, the associations of civil society
should serve as schools of democracy (Tocqueville 1969 vol. 2, 517): they may pro-
vide individuals with information, educate them, develop their sense of political
efcacy, cultivate their capacities for negotiation and deliberation, and instill civic
virtues such as toleration, trust, respect for others, and sense of reciprocity.
Second, democracies are inherently public: rules, reasons, and decisions are
knowable by those affected by them. Civil societies function as the social infrastruc-
ture, as it were, of the public spheres from which collective decisions ultimately
derive their legitimacy. In a democracy, legitimacy stems from two sources. The rst
source is inclusion: the legitimacy of decisions rests on responsiveness to those
affectedif not in substance, then because the views incorporated into decisions
have been considered and deliberated. The associations of civil society provide the
conduits of representation though advocacy and by framing the interests, values,
and voices of those potentially affected, thus forming articulate constituencies
(Young 2000, ch. 5). The second source of democratic legitimacy is public delibera-
tion itself, through which representations are transformed into discourses which
form public opinion, such that decisions have a locus of considered argument and
agreement (Habermas 1996). The associations of civil society underwrite delibera-
tion by organizing and communicating information to publics, provoking public
deliberation, and monitoring public ofcials and institutions. Sometimes these
functions are served by groups that specialize in public discourse, such as think
tanks and media-oriented groups. Often, however, they are consequences of groups
pursuing their agendas through public advocacy (Urbinati 2000). In short, civil
societies can deepen democracy by underwriting the public spheres that guide and
legitimatize collective decisions.
Third, civil society associations serve institutional functions that are necessary
for a democracy to work. The advocacy organizations of civil society serve represen-
tative functions between elections, linking public ofcials with constituents, and
often forming constituencies that are not formally represented by territorially based
electoral institutions (Urbinati and Warren 2008). Multilateral and multistate insti-
tutions such as the United Nations and the European Union now include civil soci-
ety organizations as part of their representative structures, in part to represent
interestssuch as basic human rightsthat are not well represented through
member-state channels. The development of governance structures also provides
conduits of inclusion. Civil society is itself a key site of collective decision and orga-
nization: all countries now deliver services through partnerships, contracts, and
other forms of devolved and de-centered forms of governance (Leighninger 2006).
And last but not least, civil society organizations provide sites of alternative voices
and opposition when interests, values, or voices are not included (Young 2000).
3. Theorizing the Democratic Capabilities

of Civil Society Associations
Listing the many possible political functions of civil society underscores the point
that democracies today are complex ecologies which have come to depend upon the
multiple contributions of civil society. This same list, however, makes the point that
no single kind of association can perform all of these functions, and indeed some
will not perform any of them, and may even be harmful to democracy (Berman
1997; Chambers and Kopstein 2001; Chambers and Kymlicka 2002). How should we
develop our expectations? Following earlier work (Warren 2001), I suggest three
kinds of theoretical distinctions which, when taken together, identify the features of
civil society associations most likely to affect their democratic functions.
a. Voluntariness
It is common to refer to the associations that populate civil society as voluntary
associations (e.g., Salamon 2003). The reason is normative rather than descriptive:
as a pure ideal type, associations are constituted by individuals who share purposes,
and who chose to associate to advance these purposes. There is also a normative
relationship between the voluntariness of associations and democracy: social rela-
tions that are chosen rather than imposed will manifest rather than limit self-
government. The legitimacy of collective choice follows from the voluntariness of
the associationa normative relationship fundamental to liberal contract theory
from Locke through Rawls.
As an analytic matter, however, no association is entirely voluntary or involun-
tary. Rather, there are degrees of voluntariness that will depend upon an associa-
tions control over the resources that people need or want, including identity
resources such as religion, ethnicity, and culture. The degree of voluntariness has
implications for democracy in three ways. The rst relates to the association itself:
a purely voluntary association has low normative requirements for democracy
internal to the association just because members are free to exit. Freedom to exit
higher degrees of voluntarismis likely to produce associations with more homo-
geneous purposes. And the more homogeneous its purpose, the more able the
association will be to pursue goals that depend upon solidarity. Common purposes
help to build what Putnam (2000, 33649) calls bonding social capital, as opposed
to the weaker bridging social capital that is created by internally diverse associa-
tions that cross ethnic, religious, racial, regional, and other divides. Members are
better able to speak with one voice in the public sphere and represent positions or
discourses within broad public conversations. Because voluntariness enhances
solidarity, these associations are more likely to enable opposition to external
sources of domination.
In contrast, associations with involuntary elements have potentials for exploita-
tion and domination, as is evident in criminal and clientelist associations, and as is
not uncommon in ethnic and religious associations too. Civil societies that are dense
with these kinds of associationsas are many of the new electoral democraciesmay
function to reproduce social relations of power in ways that undermine the demo-
cratic effects of electoral institutions.
But involuntary associations can serve democracy in two other ways. First, from
a normative perspective, the more involuntary an association is, the more demo-
cratic its internal decision making should be. Many common forms of association
have involuntary elements, such as unions and workplaces, or residential commu-
nities and neighborhoods in which people have large sunk costs. Religious associa-
tions can be experienced as involuntary by those raised in the faith. These kinds of
associations have the potential to serve a variety of democratic purposes, precisely
because their involuntariness makes it difcult for them to externalize conict.
Members cannot vote with their feet (Hirschman 1970). For these reasons, invol-
untary associations must nd ways of managing conict. If they do so democrati-
cally, they can manage and protect against potential relations of domination, thus
serving the goal of nondomination.
Second, to the extent that associations respond to their involuntary elements
democratically with voice and votes, they are also likely to serve as schools of
democracy, cultivating deliberative capacities, toleration, and political efcacy. In
contrast, the more voluntary an association, the more likely it is to externalize
conict: members who are dissatised will often nd exit to be easier than voice.
Voluntary associations are subject to the dynamics of self-selection, which will
create memberships that are more homogeneous in their purposes and social
characteristics. They may be inclined to reinforce intolerance because they enable
enclave deliberation in which members with similar opinions reinforce one
another (Sunstein 2001).
b. Constitutive Media
The degree of voluntariness is only one of the features of civil society associations
likely to determine their contributions to democracy. We can also distinguish asso-
ciations along a second dimensionwhat I call their constitutive media. We need to
know whether an association is primarily oriented towards (1) social norms such as
shared identity or purpose, moral commitment, friendship, or other means of social
solidarity; (2) state power, as are many kinds of advocacy and interest groups; or (3)
markets and money, as are consumer cooperatives, social marketing associations,
and labor unions. The medium towards which an association is primarily
orientedsocial norms, state power, or marketsdetermines much about the ways
an association reproduces its identity and pursues its goals, which in turn affect its
contributions to democracy.
An example will indicate why this set of distinctions is important. Consider
the ways in which associations manage conict, which in turn affects several
potential democratic functions, including serving as schools of democracy and
as sites of devolved or de-concentrated public purposes. All other things being
equal, associations held together by social norms such as hobby groups or reli-
gious associations will have high degrees of solidarity, which will improve capaci-
ties for collective action. But these same characteristics will make it difcult for
such associations to manage internal conict, since conict typically damages
social solidaritythe constitutive medium of the association. From a democratic
perspective, it might be good for members of an association to discuss and delib-
erate principled disagreements and delicate issues. But even civil argument tends
to threaten social bonds, and will tend towards the equally antipolitical responses
of exit (in the case of voluntary associations), or repression for the sake of civility
(in less voluntary associations). More generally, associations based on social soli-
darity alone will tend to be robust in identity formation, and have high capacities
for generating bonding social capital and the capacities for collective action that
follow. But they will be fragile with respect to conict resolutionand thus serve
as poor schools of democracy with respect to deliberation, negotiation, and bar-
gaining (Mutz 2006).
In contrast, associations that are oriented towards markets (such as labor
unions) or political structures (such as community development associations or
political interest groups), will depend more on interests in strategic goals than on
social norms and identities. A community development association has interest-
based inducements to set aside differences of race, ethnicity, and religious afliation
so that the organization can do its job. Indeed, like legislative bodies, such associa-
tions may develop norms of courtesy in order to prevent social cleavages from inca-
pacitating deliberation and decision making (Warren 2006). All other things being
equal, associations that are oriented towards interest-based goals will unburden
social solidarity, which will in turn increase their capacities for political deliberation
and problem solving. To the extent that interests cross-cut identity-based cleavages,
these kinds of associations may foster the civic virtues of tolerance and reciprocity,
while weakening representations of identity-based claims in public spheres.
It also makes a difference whether an association is vested or not vested in its
constitutive medium: groups seeking to pressure market-based actors or political
structures from without will have an easier time identifying a causeand going pub-
licthan groups that have access to resources which they must manage, compromise,
or distribute. When the German green movement, for example, was debating whether
to become a political party in the 1970s, they recognized the tradeoffs involved.
Transforming their organization into a party might give them a greater inuence over
policy decisions. But as insiders with inuence, they would compromise their ability
to criticize and oppose policies based on clear principles and purposes, which would
in turn weaken their popular base in the green social movement.
c. Purposes
The nal set of distinctions that make a difference to the democratic functions of
associations has to do with their purposes. In complex societies the purposes of asso-
ciation are highly diversethe Internal Revenue Service in the United States uses over
600 classications of 501(c)(3) nonprots alone. Fortunately, the features of purposes
likely to make a difference to an associations democratic functions are much simpler,
the most important of which have to do with whether an association seeks goods that
are inherently public, identity-based, or status-based (Warren 2001, ch. 5). Associations
devoted to public goods are especially important to deepening democracy. Public
goods are nonexcludable goods subject to free-ridershipgoods such as security,
environmental integrity, and public health which must be provided to everyone if
they are provided to anyone. These goods can only be gained through collective action,
and so people must be persuaded to contribute. So associations devoted to public
goods will tend to cultivate civic virtues, underwrite deliberation, represent common
discourses and ideals, and increase common capacities for collective action.
In contrast, associations devoted to identity goods such as religion and ethnicity
are more ambiguous in their effects: someparticularly minoritiesmay seek recog-
nition and thus increase civic virtues such as toleration. Othersparticularly
majoritiesoften highlight in-group/out-group distinctions in order to produce
internal cohesion, but at the cost of generating intolerance and exclusion. Such groups
may contribute to public debate and group representation, but they are unlikely to
enhance civic virtues or political skills of deliberation. Associations devoted to status
goodsprivate clubs and connoisseur groups, for exampleare unlikely to contrib-
ute to publicly represented dynamics of exclusion, but they will also tend towards
exclusive status-based connections that contribute very little at all to democracy.
4. Democratic Associational Ecologies

A comprehensive research agenda on civil societys contributions to deepening
democracy would map a region or countrys associational landscape using these kinds
of distinctions. We are far from having such maps (cf. Salamon 2003; Powell and
Steinberg 2006; Hodgkinson and Weitzman 1996), but even if we did have them, our
theoretical expectations would not yet be sufciently developed to address the ques-
tion of how civil societies might deepen democracy, especially across different con-
texts. The analysis above makes the point that no single kind of association can address
the full range of functions civil society must fulll, while also suggesting theoretical
distinctions that should enable us to predict the contributions of distinct associational
types (Warren 2001). The next task is to identify the mixes, balances, and distributions
of associational types will serve to deepen democracy along the individual, public,
and institutional trajectories suggested above. What would comprise a democratic
associational ecology? To be sure, answering this question requires context-specic

research into the mixes of associations that support or undermine democracy. But we
can frame these research questions with several theoretical guidelines in mind.
a. Balance
A mix of associations that deepens democracy should be balanced: a political sys-
tem needs the full range of potential contributions to function democratically.
Imbalances may occur, for example, when civil society lacks interest-based associa-
tions to balance identity-based associations. Or, again, if a civil society is comprised
primarily of associations that have vested interests in prevailing political or eco-
nomic power structuresif most civil society associations are integrated into clien-
telist politics (as they are in many of the new electoral democracies), for
examplecivil society will tend to undermine democratic representation and pub-
lic deliberation, and will certainly fail to provide citizens with means of oversight
and accountability. Or, to take another possibility, if a civil society is comprised
primarily of groups mobilized for opposition, the overall effect may be to create
gridlock in government and undermine state capacities.
b. External and Internal and Checks on Associations

Certain kinds of civil society organizations are potential threats to democracy
particularly those which combine high capacities for collective action with narrowly
focused interests or internally focused identities. Within authoritarian contexts,
tribal or religious organizations may function as informal monitors and enforcers
for governments. Associations populated by business people, for example, can serve
to organize monopolies or oligopolies (as chambers of commerce have sometimes
done in small U.S. towns), or as means for organizing the systematic corruption of
a political system (as the Free Masons did in post-World War II Italy). Civil societies
that deepen democracy will not lack such groups. But they are likely to have a mix
of associations that check the potentials of such powerful groups to produce anti-
democratic effects. A civil society with external checks on power will typically
include, for example, citizens watchdog groups, unions, associations of socially
conscious investors, groups devoted to the provision of public goods, as well as a
pluralism of identity-based groups. Of course, the mixes that provide such external
checks typically depend on governments that protect pluralism, provide oversight
of potential misuses of market power, and are relatively difcult for corrupting
powers to penetrateall reasons that democratic civil societies tend to be associ-
ated with the protections and supports of liberal-democratic regimes.
Other kinds of associations are subject to internal checks, so that even when
they accumulate power they pose little risk to democracy. Internal checks are likely
to be found within associations that combine lower exit with public purposes.
Because associations with restricted exit will tend to internalize conict, they
will have inducements to manage conict through processes that generate
accountability (Hirschman 1970). These inducements are likely to be strongest

within associations that seek public or common goods, since such goods can only
be achieved, typically, with public justications. Examples of these kinds of associa-
tions include groups devoted to civic, environmental, poverty, health, and other
public goods-related causes, some kinds of political parties, public corporatist bod-
ies, universities, much of the mass media, self-help and cooperative economic net-
works, and many other kinds of groups with these characteristics. Thus, we should
expect civil societies with high densities of these kinds of associations to have rela-
tively sturdy democratic associational ecologies.
c. Individual Attachments
We also need to think about associational mixes from the perspective of the indi-
vidual attachments that form citizens dispositions and capacities. Just as a civil
society should have a mix of associations that cover the full range of democratic
functions, individuals should have attachments that, in aggregate, provide a full
range of developmental effects. Here again, there will be associational kinds that are
more likely to provide developmental effects that enhance civic virtues and delib-
erative capacities: on average, these will include associations with somewhat
restricted exit, have some responsibilities for resource distribution, and are oriented
towards public or common goods. Examples include groups focused on education,
health, and community development, and labor unions engaged in social issues.
In contrast, identity-based groups, exclusive social clubs, fundamentalist reli-
gious and ethnic groups, and business pressure groups, though perhaps important
for the representative ecology of a democracy, also tend towards internal homoge-
neity of purpose, and so will lack one or more of the developmental experiences
necessary for democratic citizenship. In associational ecologies in which individuals
belong to these kinds of groups without complementary experiences, patterns of
membership may produce rigid social cleavages which militate against political
negotiation and deliberation. It is for this reason that activists seeking to move soci-
eties torn by ethnic or religious cleavages towards democracy will advocate forms of
association focused on concrete projects such as community development: these
kinds of associations cross-cut, and thus moderate, identity-based cleavages
(Saunders 1999). Societies in which cleavages follow tribal, ethnic, or religious lines
do not lack civil society associations, but they lack the kinds of associations that
produce democratic citizens.
d. Distributions of Attachments
Finally, who benets from associational attachments also makes a difference:
joiners will gain from advantages conveyed by social capital in ways that non-
joiners will not. Thus, even if the mixes of associations in a society are balanced
and checked in ways that favor democracy, it is still possible for patterns
of associational attachments to mirror common resource advantages and
disadvantages. In the United States, for example, many of the same factors that
predict political participationparticularly education and incomealso pre-
dict associational attachments, meaning that those who benet from education
and income also benet from the distribution of social capital (Verba et. al. 1995;
Pew Research Center 1997). A democracy should seek to cultivate association
among the least advantaged, in part because association in itself is a precursor to
democratic empowermentmoving a society closer to instantiating the all-
affected principle (Warren MR 2001).
5. Conclusion
Democracy is a normatively ambitious goal: it requires that those affected by deci-
sions have opportunities to inuence them. Though ambitious, this democratic
norm encompasses the increasingly common moral intuition that societies should
maximize individual self-development and self-direction by altering power struc-
tures in favor of inclusion and voice. Yet under contemporary conditions of
politicsscale, complexity, and pluralismit is impossible to conceive of this ideal
without the multitudinous sites of organization, experience, direction, and decision
offered by civil society associations in the public sphere. Civil society is not only
about deepening democracy: it is now impossible to imagine a democracy without
the multiple effects of civil society on individual development, public deliberation
and representation, and sites of organization and collective action. That said, none
of these functions are necessary to civil society as such. Rather, they follow from
democratic associational ecologies that are comprised of those kinds of associations
whose characteristics incline them towards democratic effects.
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chapter 31
CIVIL SOCIETY
AND POVERTY
solava ibrahim
david hulme
The 1990s witnessed many changes as the Cold War ended and globalization deep-
ened. Two of these changes are especially important for this chapter. First, the evo-
lution of a global consensus that extreme poverty had to be tackled, and second,
the belief that civil society should be a major player in this task by mobilizing com-
munities, delivering services, and shaping policies. Yet the growing international
interest in poverty reduction results mainly from the efforts of aid agencies rather
than a self-sustaining social movement on poverty. The absence of committed
leadership and the breadth and vagueness of the concept of poverty make it dif-
cult to create the sharp messages that are required for large-scale social and politi-
cal mobilization.
This chapter explores the achievements of civil society in the area of poverty
reduction. Since both civil society and poverty are contested concepts, analyzing
their relationship is difcult, but we argue that civil society organizations can pro-
mote poverty reduction by pushing for macro-level structural changes through
advocacy, lobbying the government for policy change at the national level, and pro-
viding effective services directly to the poor at the grassroots. Success depends on
the ways in which civil society groups integrate these three approaches together in
different political contexts, since certain strategy mixes succeed in one context and
fail in others. In Bangladesh, for example, the success of advocacy and policy change
has been minimal due to the nature of that countrys governance, while direct ser-
vice provision has yielded signicant results.
1. Civil Society and Poverty

Most of the literature on civil society and poverty reduction focuses on nongovern-
mental organizations (NGOs). Sometimes an NGO can act as an umbrella organi-
zation that works with pre-existing community groups, acting as a facilitator and
providing technical support. Elsewhere, NGOs create community groups such as
micronance and womens groups to help the poor organize themselves and express
their needs, though the sustainability of such imposed community groups is ques-
tionable. The very idea of poverty reduction seems to be associated with elite- and
middle-class attempts to establish NGOs to help the poor, though faith-based orga-
nizations, religious communities, informal groups, cooperatives, recreational, and
cultural organizations also play their roles. For example, mosque committees in
Islamic cultures and temple and burial committees in Buddhism provide services
and assistance to the poor. Unfortunately, these services are rarely documented
except in a small number of ethnographic studies. Therefore, this chapter is focused
on NGOs.
As for dening poverty, there are heated debates about what poverty isa
lack of income, a failure to meet basic needs, a set of multi-dimensional capability
deprivations or an abrogation of human rights. These are not mere semantics as the
way one envisions poverty has profound implications for the types of actions one
believes are needed to eradicate or reduce it (Hulme 2010, 37). Denitions of global
poverty range from the narrow income concept of one U.S. dollar per day to the
broader capability approach of enlarging peoples freedoms and enhancing their
human development. This chapter argues that in addition to using objective mea-
sures, subjective methods including the voices of the poor themselves should be
used to evaluate the achievements of civil society in reducing global poverty on
both its income and capability dimensions.
In terms of global trends, poverty in the developing world has declined as the
number of people living on less than $1.25 a day in 2005 prices decreased from 1.9
billion (or 52 percent of total global population) in 1981 to 1.4 billion (or 25 percent)
in 2005 (Chen and Ravallion 2009; Ravallion 2009). However, it is hard to tie the
actions of NGOs to this decline because so many different national and subnational
experiences underlie these gures. For example China, with a limited civil society,
succeeded in reducing poverty effectively in the 2000s; while in Africa, a range of
stronger NGO communities did not achieve much success, partly due to the dif-
cult political contexts in which they operated. In contrast, NGOs in Bangladesh
have played a major role in reducing poverty. The headcount poverty index in
Bangladesh dropped from 52 percent in 198384 to 40 percent in 2000 (Hossain,
Sen, and Rahman 2000). Some of this decline is clearly attributable to the efforts of
the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), the Grameen Bank, and
other NGOs. One might also argue that poverty reduction was a result of trade
policy and growth in the private sector, but Sen and Hulme (2006) demonstrate that
almost 25 to 30 million Bangladeshis have hardly beneted at all from the growth of
civil society and poverty 393
the formal economy in Bangladeshhence the importance of NGO efforts to reach

the poorest. The impact of the 200809 nancial crisis on the worlds poor is still to
be conrmed, though it is estimated that between 55 and 90 million more people
live in extreme poverty as a result (United Nations 2009).
In assessing the role of NGOs in poverty reduction, one can examine four main
dimensions: their structure, the space in which they operate, the values they advo-
cate, and their impact on policymaking (Anheier 2004, 2932). The focus of this
chapter is on the values and impact of NGOsthat is, their ability to advocate for
values that promote equity and their role in giving voice to the poor, in lobbying
policymakers, and in expanding poverty-related service provision. This task is dif-
cult because empirical studies yield ambiguous results. For example, NGOs often
succeed in extending services to the poor and in improving their livelihoods; but
the long-term social, economic, and political impacts of these projects are question-
able. Nevertheless, it is possible to collate the available evidence along three
approaches to poverty reduction by NGOs, namely: pushing for structural and
social change via advocacy, lobbying the government for pro-poor reforms and
changing government policy, and providing for basic needs via service delivery.
2. NGO Advocacy for Global

Poverty Reduction
In recent years the success of well-mobilized campaigns around debt cancellation,
landmines, and fair trade has demonstrated the role that advocacy can play in pro-
moting anti-poverty policies internationally. Coates and David (2002, 530) argue
that advocacy work has become the latest enthusiasm for most agencies involved in
international aid and development. The use of advocacy work at all levels by NGOs
is due to a number of factors. First, their understanding of poverty and deprivation
has deepened as they have come to realize that despite decades of foreign aid, the
deeper causes of poverty have yet to be tackled. Secondly, the context in which they
operate has changed as a result of the growing size and capacity of NGOs in the
South. As a result, Southern NGOs and social movements have become more asser-
tive in challenging power structures within their own countries and increasingly at
the international level through active advocacy campaigns (Coates and David 2002,
531). Thirdly, the role of Northern NGOs is shifting in the light of this development,
making new and more effective advocacy campaigns possible in the form of coali-
tions of different organizations working across local, national, and international
levelsJubilee 2000, the global campaign for debt cancellation, is a good example
(Edwards and Gaventa 2000).
However, have these campaigns had any impact on poverty reduction?
Answering this question is difcult because the changes resulting from advocacy are
nonlinear and long-term. Advocacy depends on cooperation, which is why its
impact cannot be assessed by focusing on one organization alone, and attribution is

almost impossible above the project level, especially because most of the forces act-
ing on poverty are not controlled by NGOs or are susceptible to advocacy strategies.
But there are certainly examples of NGOs that are using advocacy to change poverty
policies and reshape patterns of aid and investment in a positive direction. Take, for
example, the case of Shack Dwellers International or SDI.
SDI was established in 1996 as an international network of organizations from
eleven countries representing more than one million of the urban poor, mostly
women, to advocate for their rights and end coercive means of slum clearance.
However, SDI does not occupy the leadership of the network; instead it plays a sup-
portive role in monitoring public policy, mobilizing members, and creating new
information resources through settlement surveys and the mapping of slums. SDI
develops leadership amongst the urban poor so that they themselves can lead the
negotiations with the state and its agencies to extend and obtain entitlements
(Patel, Burra, and DCruz 2001, 47). Its main activities focus on building and
strengthening community-based organizations of the urban poor and helping them
to nd and implement community-led solutions to housing and livelihood prob-
lems. The network uses saving-and-credit schemes to help members with housing
loans, nurtures social capital, and supports them in their negotiations with local
authorities and central governments, especially over security-of-tenure and the
provision of adequate housing and infrastructure (Batliwala 2002, 403404; Patel,
Burra, and DCruz 2001, 47).
SDIs success has been well documented in the literature and is demonstrated in
its growing size, its widespread impact on the lives of its members, and its ability to
successfully advocate for change in housing and urban development policies at local,
national, and international levels, including the investment policies of the World
Bank (Patel, Bolnick, and Mitlin 2001; Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2004b, 288; Batliwala
2002, 407). Its success is due to at least four reasons. First, SDI enjoys high levels of
legitimacy through representation because of its democratic nature, strong internal
accountability systems and the constant reinvention of its relationships with grass-
roots actors (Edwards 2001, 148; Batliwala 2002, 406). Secondly, SDI has gained wide
international recognition and has become a partner with the United Nations Centre
for Human Settlements (Habitat) and the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure, but
its main focus is on responding effectively to the specic needs of the urban poor in
each locality (Patel Burra, and DCruz 2001, 52; Satterthwaite 2001, 135138; Edwards
2001, 149). Thirdly, SDIs success is due to the use of knowledge and research to sup-
port its advocacy activities, knowledge that is conceived as embedded in the lives
and experiences of the poor themselves (McFarlane 2006, 294). Fourth, SDI has cre-
ated an empowering mindset among its members that encourages them to ght for
their rights, making community-based organizations the leading force in the strug-
gle against poverty, with NGOs playing a supportive role, helping link peoples orga-
nizations with mainstream governmental or private institutions, and acting as
researchers and fundraisers (Patel, Burra, and DCruz 2001, 48). The case of SDI
thus demonstrates the importance of international partnerships, mutual learning,
knowledge exchange, and community empowerment as strategies through which

NGOs can promote poverty reduction through advocacy.
Advocacy movements bring the poors struggles to public attention, spread the
politics of hope and inspire the poor and disenfranchised by showing that change
is possible. Rather than conventional approaches to advocacy in which NGOs gen-
erate campaigns on behalf of the poor, the success of SDI and others like it shows
that effective advocacy rests on strengthening the bargaining power of the poor
themselves to defend their rights and enhance their capacity for organization
and collective action. As Mitlin and Satterthwaite (2004b, 282) explain, poverty-
reduction requires more than an ofcial recognition of the poors needs. It has to
include strengthening an accountable peoples movement that is able to renegotiate
the relationship between the urban poor and the state (its political and bureaucratic
apparatus at district, city and higher levels), and also between the urban poor and
other stakeholders. One of the challenges that NGOs face is their reluctance to
accept that groups of the poor often develop as alternatives to professionally driven
solutions. It is therefore essential that when operating in the advocacy domain,
NGOs view their role mainly as supporters and facilitators and do not take on what
individuals and community organizations can do on their own (Mitlin and
Satterthwaite 2004b, 283). NGO advocacy can best help the poor not by speaking on
their behalf, but by helping them to express their voices, articulate their needs and
defend their rights effectively.
3. Changing Government Policy

NGOs can inuence government to adopt pro-poor reforms through a number of
strategies. First, by monitoring the allocation of government resources in favor of
the poorfor example, by calling for participatory and gender-based budgeting.
Second, by facilitating public debate around poverty-related problems so as to inu-
ence policy design, build new alliances, gain new supporters, and encourage policy-
makers to establish programs that address these problems. For example, in Peru
indigenous peoples have the right of prior consent before economic activities take
place on their lands as a result of the efforts of indigenous peoples movements and
their NGO partners (Bebbington et al. 2009, 11). Many NGOs work with local gov-
ernments to gain acceptability, and use a nonconfrontational approach to ensure
that their suggestions are listened to (Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2004b, 286). Therefore,
NGOs operating in this domain are also usually pragmatic and seek to cooperate
with political parties who have a pro-poor agenda. Through partnerships with state
agencies and by establishing a supportive institutional environment, NGOs can
successfully scale up their initiatives to ensure their sustainability and reach.
The success of NGOs in affecting government policy depends on a number of fac-
tors, including the political context and the role of external actors in the formulation of
poverty reduction strategies, and the policy capacities of NGOs themselves. The par-
ticipation of NGOs in policy processes can become tokenistic because although NGOs
are working effectively to deliver services and care to poor and vulnerable groups . . . they
lack the structures and mechanisms to work at the policy level (Hughes and Atampugre
2005, 13). To improve their performance in the domain of policy change, it is therefore
important to build NGO capacity to understand policy processes, access information
more effectively, and improve their monitoring and evaluation skills. To effectively
lobby government for policy reforms, it is also necessary that NGOs build partnerships
and bridge the gaps that often exist between their staff, local communities, and policy-
makers, and form stronger alliances with other organizations in civil society (Hughes
and Atampugre 2005, 19).
As an example of these processes at work, take NGO participation in Poverty
Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). Endorsed in September 1999, PRSPs are policy
documents produced by borrower countries outlining the economic, social and
structural programmes to reduce poverty, to be implemented over a three-year
period (Stewart and Wang 2003, 4). Although NGOs were mainly invited to par-
ticipate in the PRSP process, they have tried to use these spaces to lobby for pro-
poor reforms. In Bolivia, for example, the central government initiated a national
dialogue and linked it to the PRSP process. As a result, nationwide consultations
took place at the municipal, departmental, and national levels focusing on the pro-
vision of services to the poor in the rst PRSP and on the importance of employ-
ment, productivity and commodity chains in the second (Molenaers and Renard
2002, 57; Curran 2005, 45).
Bolivian NGOs faced a number of challenges in using the PRSP process as an
effective space to lobby for policy change due to the limited time frame of the process,
the limited information available, the language in which the PRSPs were written, the
lack of state commitment, the limited organizational capacities of NGOs, and their
failure to form a unied front (Stewart and Wang 2003, 1214; Surkin 2005). In many
cases, NGOs were excluded from the design of frameworks and merely participated in
precooked proposals for policy change (Stewart and Wang 2003, 15, Fraser 2005, 326;
Curran 2005, 5; Eberlei 2007, 13). As a result, the consultation process raised expecta-
tions and led to frustration and social unrest when the state failed to meet them.
NGOs expressed their frustration by sending a formal petition to the government
expressing their disapproval of the PRSP document (Curran 2005, 49).
Nevertheless, there are two signicant achievements of NGO participation in
the PRSP process in Bolivia. The rst is the establishment of a social control mecha-
nism which allows NGOs to monitor the allocation and implementation of debt
relief funds, and to follow up on the implementation and reformulation of the PRSP.
The second is the Law of National Dialogue, which institutionalized NGO participa-
tion in policy formulation at the local level (Curran 2005, 89; Molenaers and Renard
2002, 8). NGO participation in these deliberative processes gradually turned their
attitude from Protesta (protest) into Propuesta (proposal) (Molenaers and Renard
2002, 8). The PRSP process was therefore an entry point through which NGOs
pushed the development process forward in a pro-poor direction.
4. Service Delivery to the Poor

Rahman (2006) argues that the NGO sector as a whole has shifted away from its
initial focus on promoting political mobilization and accountable government, to
the apolitical delivery of basic services (Rahman 2006, 451). NGOs face problems
because the services they provide are often unsustainable due to their dependence
on external funding, the difculties of going to scale, and their inability to recover
costs through user charges. Evaluating the performance of sixteen NGO projects in
the area of rural poverty reduction, Robinson (1992) concludes that three-quarters
of the projects were successful and had an impact in alleviating poverty (Robinson
1992, 30), but NGOs faced a number of limitations on their service delivery projects
including their inability to reach the poorest (Robinson 1992, 3034). Effective ser-
vice delivery requires an integrated approach whereby NGOs work with commu-
nity groups to improve their conditions while nurturing their relationship with
local government (Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2004a, 18). Otherwise NGO service pro-
vision may undermine government responsibility to provide adequate and efcient
services to the poor (Collier 2000, 122), leading to a franchise state in which cru-
cial public services are run by private programs (Rahman 2006, 455).
When these positive conditions are met, NGO service provision can be extremely
effective in both the short and the longer terms. In their mapping of South African
social movements, for example, Mitlin and Mogaladi (2009) point out that these
movements were concerned with solving concrete problems related to poverty
reduction, such as shelter, human rights, labor, gender, and the environment. To
address these problems, they focused mainly on service delivery, especially the res-
toration of land to those who have been evicted (Mitlin and Mogaladi 2009, 2122).
NGOs contribute to urban poverty reduction by often fullling the role that gov-
ernment agencies should providefor instance, provision of water, waste removal,
healthcare or the support of centres that assist particular groups (such as centres for
street children) (Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2004a, 18). In general terms then, the role
of NGOs in service delivery should be complementary to the government and sup-
portive to local communities. NGOs operating in this domain should emphasize
the long-term effects of their projects by asking how will this have to work in the
future, after we leave? (Collier 2000, 121). The answer to this question is crucial not
only for the continuity of the services provided, but also for the sustainability of
their poverty-reducing impacts on targeted communities. The case of the Bangladesh
Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) demonstrates how an NGO can success-
fully and sustainably provide a comprehensive package of services to the poor and
even to the poorest.
Many NGOs help the poor directly through service provision, but BRAC occu-
pies a particularly important position as the developing worlds largest NGO in
terms of the scale and diversity of its intervention (Chowdhury and Bhuiya 2004,
371). Founded as a charitable organization in 1972 to help in Bangladeshs reconstruc-
tion after the countrys liberation war, its humanitarian efforts were later expanded
to provide more permanent solutions to the problems of vulnerable groups (Lovell

1992, 23; Chowdhury Mahmoud, and Abed 1991, 4; Rahman 2006, 454). BRACs
development strategy stresses the importance of empowerment and conscientiza-
tion, encourages participation and self-reliance, and adopts sustainable and people-
centered approaches with a special emphasis on women and the poorest (Stiles 2002,
842; Lovell 1992, 2433). This organization is worth careful examination because it
turns standard notions about development, business, poverty alleviation, and man-
agement on their head. And it confronts the idea that the drivers of development in
poor countries must inevitably come from abroad (Smilie 2009, 3).
Through its innovative services in education, health, agriculture, and income
generation, BRAC has succeeded in bringing about lasting change in the lives of
millions of poor people (Hulme and Moore 2010; Mustafa et al. 1996; Husain 1998).
Four million children (70 percent of them girls) have graduated from its Non-
Formal Primary Education program (NFPE) (Lovell 1992, 4850), and its extensive
network of schools . . . provide[s] more non-formal education than the government
(Stiles 2002, 843). Millions benet from BRACs innovative community-based health
care services and BRAC cooperates with the government to improve the national
health system, with an emphasis on womens health and child survival programs
(Lovell 1992, 58; Afsana and Rashid 2001, 79; Streeand and Chowdhury 1990, 263).
BRAC also helps the poor through rigorous research that enhances the productivity
of their enterprises, for example through new systems of chick rearing, poultry vac-
cination, and improved cattle breeding (Smilie 2009, 3). BRACs poverty reduction
program depends on creating an enabling environment for the poor by promoting
gender equity and human rights; enhancing the poors access to education, health
care, housing, adequate technology, minimum income, and employment; and
ensuring their entitlement to food and assets (Chowdhury and Bhuiya 2004, 373
376). Through the Rural Development Program, BRAC nurtures the entrepreneur-
ial capabilities of the poor, while its Rural Credit Project serves the graduates of this
program and helps them not simply by extending credit, but also by encouraging
their collective activities (Chowdhury Mahmoud, and Abed 1991, 11). Its micro-
credit schemes have made loans totaling more than $1 billion.
BRACs most important contribution to poverty reduction is the Income
Generation for Vulnerable Group Development Program, which aims at using a
combination of food aid, savings and training in activities with low capital require-
ments as a means of enabling the marginalized to climb the ladder out of ultra-
poverty (Halder and Mosely 2004, 387). The program has been very effective in
reaching the ultra-poor and has successfully deepened the outreach of its poverty-
reduction activity and achieved impressive results (Matin and Hulme 2003, 647).
Although BRACs main focus is on service delivery, it is gradually moving beyond
a supply side approach, concentrating on the delivery of services or development
projects, to a demand side emphasis, helping communities articulate their prefer-
ences and concerns so as to become active participants in the development process
(Clark 1995, 593). The main reason for BRACs unprecedented achievement in
reducing poverty is the diversity and complementarity of its activities, which do not
depend only on micro-credit, but use different paths to reduce poverty and vulner-
ability through income generation, asset building, and addressing immediate
consumption needs (Matin, Hulme, and Rutherford 2002, 286287). BRACs com-
prehensive programs, innovative service delivery projects, empowerment strategies,
people-centered approach, and focus on the poorest are the main reasons for its
remarkable success in poverty reduction.
5. Synergies and Lessons Learned

Each of the three strategies reviewed in brief above interacts with the others. For
example, service delivery can create the necessary knowledge base for advocacy and
policy change, since NGOs will be in a better position to collect the information
required to advocate for pro-poor policies. However, when they operate in service
delivery mode, NGOs also need to be careful not to adopt an exclusively needs-
based approach that neglects the poors human rights, and fails to challenge the
structures and policies that brought about these deprivations in the rst place.
Given these mutually reinforcing linkages, an integrative and collaborative approach
is the best way for NGOs to use the data and experience they gain through service
provision to call for wider policy changes in favor of the poor and advocate for
structural transformations that can help sustain these gains over time. NGOs can
also focus on building the local organizational capacity of the poor, strengthening
their ability to work together, organize themselves, and mobilize resources to solve
problems of common interest. Organized communities are more likely to have their
voices heard and their demands met (Narayan 2002, vii). But these strategy mixes
are also dependent on the nature of the political environment in which NGOs oper-
ate, especially the effectiveness of the state.
The experiences reviewed in this chapter demonstrate that the success of NGOs
in promoting poverty reduction is dependent on a number of factors. First, the
quality of the relationships between NGOs and the poor is crucial: the extent of
success also depends upon the extent to which such organizations have resources or
decision-making powers that can support urban poor groups, and on the space
given by such organizations to urban poor groups in dening priorities and devel-
oping responsesor, more fundamentally . . . in actually conceptualizing participa-
tion (Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2004b, 289).
Second, poverty is multidimensional, and therefore requires the adoption of a
multifaceted strategy. For example, to address inadequate incomes, NGOs need to
provide the poor with relevant training and the skills required to access better-paid
jobs, widen their possibilities for self-production, extend the safety net through
public works programs, and lobby for policy change in the provision of better and
cheaper services. Inadequate and unstable assets can be addressed through emer-
gency and asset building credit schemes, nurturing social capital for communal
access to resources, and improving the poors access to housing, health, and educa-
tion. To overcome the problem of inadequate shelter, NGOs can help the poor to
access new land and reduce building costs in addition to lobbying government to
legalize informal settlements. Deteriorating infrastructure and social services can
be addressed by increasing the capacity of local governments. The poor lack secu-
rity, which is why NGOs need to lobby for the establishment of social safety nets,
especially for the most vulnerable groups. Finally, through advocacy and policy
reforms, NGOs can also protect the rights of the poor, enhance their bargaining
power and help them overcome their lack of political voice.
Third, NGOs must personify the values they stand for. While calling for
democracy, development, and social justice, NGOs need to demonstrate that their
organizations adopt these values in their own activities and in their relationships
with grassroots groups. Their role should be one of facilitating community-led
solutions to ensure the sustainability of poverty reduction efforts. Fourth, the suc-
cess of NGOs in tackling poverty depends on their adoption of an integrated
approach that combines elements from all three strategies into a mutually sup-
portive mix that is appropriate and effective in each context, combining practical
and strategic actions by focusing on concrete, short-term solutions while also
addressing the long-term dynamics that perpetuate poverty. Finally, knowledge
and mutual learning are crucial for enhancing the effectiveness of NGO roles in
poverty reduction. Knowledge helps NGOs not only to design more effective pov-
erty reduction policies but also to enhance their bargaining power and credibility
when calling for pro-poor reforms.
6. Conclusion
Although NGO achievements in the eld of poverty reduction are not always easy
to identify, it is clear that their efforts can help to disseminate a politics of hope
and an empowering mindset that inspires the poor and helps them to voice their
demands. NGOs should not lead this process, but they can act as facilitators in ways
that leave enough space for the poor to articulate their own needs. If NGOs are to
play a more effective role in poverty reduction, they need to overcome a number of
limitations. First, they need to move away from a needs-based to an integrative
approach that respects the rights of the poor and helps them to improve their living
conditions in sustainable ways. Service delivery programs managed by NGOs should
not replace government services, but rather complement and strengthen themas
is the case with BRAC.
Secondly, successful advocacy for the rights of poor people is based on adequate
knowledge and deep understanding of their needs, context, and demands. Third, the
impact of NGOs on policy change is limited so long as they maintain a competitive and
mistrustful relationship with their governments. NGOs need not only to cooperate
with government, but also to coordinate their own activities and thus create a unied
front that can lobby for sustainable pro-poor national policies. To do so, they need to
build their own capacities and improve the skills required to engage in policy dialogues,
work with grassroots organizations, and develop and articulate credible alternative
policy choices that can help to improve the lives of the poor.
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chapter 32
CIVIL SOCIETY AND PEACE
jenny pearce
Civil society has come to play a central role in the post-Cold War peace and peace-
building agendas, mirroring its trajectory in the elds of development and democ-
racy. As many have noted however, civil society is both a normative concept and one
that can be empirically observed (Howell and Pearce 2001). The associational con-
tent of this concept can be valued but it can also be counted. Associations can
become part of policy and practice, categorized, and funded. The problem arises
when the normative and empirical aspects of civil society are elided in an effort to
create a neutral tool for application across different contexts. In this process, civil
society becomes used as a collective noun, aggregating multiple and diverse forms
of associational life and assuming that what it ought to be is the same as what it
is. In fact any claim to universality is difcult to sustain given the origins of this
concept in the Western Enlightenment, and can easily become vacated of meaning,
as Colas (1997, 3940) has pointed out: devoid of context, no longer linked to a
particular period or a precise doctrine, gushing out of everyones mouth at once,
civil society acceded at the end of the 1980s to a sort of empty universality. Now
that it has become a label for all sorts of goods, and in certain cases even a mask for
intellectual emptiness, civil society allows people to speak without knowing what
they are saying, which in turn helps them to avoid arguing with each other.
Despite these strictures, this chapter argues that the concept of civil society is
signicant for peace and peace-building, and that it is most useful when articulat-
ing the importance, and defending the possibility, of public disagreement and dis-
cussion when constructing shared ideas of the good society. Its normative power
lies not in the specic values which different traditions attach to the concept, but in
the general value of aspiring to such a society created through the contested values
of what good actually means. Potentially, civil society has a deep afnity with
peace, another important idea that is often treated in uncontroversial terms as
simply the absence of war. If, on the other hand, peace is conceptualized as a highly
civil society and peace 405
complex idea that pertains to the human endeavor of building conditions in which
societies can live without violence, it is evident that, like civil society, peace is a site
of disagreement as well as the capacity to reach agreements themselves. Peace is an
activity of cultivating the process of agreeing (Cox 1986, 12).
The rst section of this chapter argues that civil society is conceptually rel-
evant precisely because it concerns a plurality of visions that are articulated in a
plurality of ways, all of which ultimately contribute to the peaceful interactions
of human beings. However, this argument must not be confused with empiri-
cally observable patterns of associational life that do not necessarily point in this
direction at all, in fact quite often the opposite. Distinctions between the civil
and the uncivil therefore need to be explored and, it is argued, retained. The
afnity of civil society with peace and peace-building becomes clear only if this
distinction is clearly understood. A commitment to nonviolent forms of human
interaction, for instance, must surely dene a boundary for the idea of civil soci-
ety if it is to be meaningful to understandings of human progress. Section 2
focuses on these key distinctions. Section 3 makes the case for maintaining an
explicitly normative, but not hegemonic or homogenous understanding of civil
society which aspires to distinguish itself from an uncivil Other by exploring
the contribution of associations to peace-building in practice. Recognizing the
legitimacy and signicance of associational dynamics outside of the state has
been of vitalthough controversialimportance in efforts to build new norms
for peace in the world, counter violent actors, and build peaceful outcomes after
peace agreements. Civil society is therefore a vital conceptual source of agree-
ment-building around such norms.
1. Civil Society and Peace:

A Natural Affinity?
It is frequently argued that civil society and democracy reinforce each other. Is this
also true of peace? What is it about the normative reading of civil society which
makes this a pertinent question? A good starting point for this discussion is to clar-
ify what civil might refer to. Dictionary denitions of civil, from the Latin civis
or citizen, contain three main meanings: polite or courteous; concerned with the
law in noncriminal cases; and ordinary, as in not military or religious. All three de-
nitions point to the assumption that certain kinds of human relationships counter
strife and bad behavior, and create a milieu of positive sociability that is indepen-
dent of the forces of coercion and religious authority. There are also echoes of
ancient Greek ideas about virtue here, and of the duties that good citizens share
with one another. The Aristotelian version of these ideas added the participation of
the citizen into the picture as one who is entitled to share in deliberative or judicial
ofce (Aristotle, 1981, 87). The Greek polis was itself a response to war and the need
for villages to come together for mutual protection and to overcome dissension
between families or clans.
The rst meaning of civil refers to polite or courteous behavior. During the
Western Enlightenment, this idea became associated with an emergent ideal of
civility. At the time, however, this ideal developed in the context of an early-
expansionist Europe and its efforts to distinguish itself from the uncivilized Other
of the worlds it encountered. Adam Ferguson wrote that the epithets of civilized or
of polished properly refer to modern nations, which differ from barbarous or rude
nations principally because of their discretionary use of violence (quoted in Keane
1996, 20). The emergent European civil society was counterposed in this way to the
barbarian and the savage of the so-called new worlds. In the 1930s, Norberto
Elias explored the civilizing process in Europe in terms of how Western societies,
which in the early Middle Ages were ruled by numerous smaller and greater war-
riors, became the internally more or less pacied but outwardly embattled societies
that we call States (Elias 2000, xii). He connected this process in Europe to both the
formation of states and the diminishing of intra-elite violence. As the nobility lost
their war functions, so economic and social interdependencies emerged and man-
ners of social interaction were rened among elites. This culture ltered through to
other social groups and, as the institutions which enforced the states monopoly of
power become more effective, greater levels of security in social life generated stron-
ger social interdependencies. Martin Elsner (2001) has traced the decline in elite
violence which ensued, and the rise of economic incentives to reduce violence and
support an effective state monopoly over its use. A long-term decline in adult and
male-on-male violence was accompanied by a cultural model of the conduct of
life, reinforced and reproduced through social institutions (Elsner 2008, 301). While
levels of homicide and interpersonal violence did decline in Europe, they did not
disappear.
A parallel process witnessed the rise of organizations and movements against
different forms of violence, from the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century
to organized campaigns against domestic violence and child abuse in the late twen-
tieth century and beyond. Voluntary associations have played a very important role
in de-sanctioning different forms of violence in these ways, and a strong case can be
made that empirical civil society, and not just the state, has contributed greatly to
the task of peace-building, understood as the process of building the conditions in
which people can live without violence. Equally, the notion that the state unam-
biguously limits violence by persuading society of its right to monopolize its use has
proven to be highly problematic. States themselves have been responsible for acts of
extreme violence in their attempts to put down revolts, preserve elite rule or ethnic
domination, and pacify populations.
A second meaning of civil lies in its association with the rule of law, and in par-
ticular with noncriminal disputes. At its origins, civil society referred to that form
of association which upholds and promotes the regulatory mechanisms which
enable citizenship to be a meaningful exercise, and which protect individuals from
arbitrary acts of force. Eighteenth-century Europe was locked into a very limited
understanding of citizenship and the law, which in practice were highly skewed
towards the protection of property and wealthy white men. It was through the
actions of new associations, forged rst of all in the workplaces of the industrializ-
ing world, that emergent ideas of civil and political rights were democratized in a
struggle which lasted into the twentieth century, and which continues in many parts
of the world today. This initial struggle in Europe expanded from male workers in
trade unions to associations which represented other sectors of society such as
women, and black and ethnic minorities. However, it was not these mobilizations
per se which articulated the idea of civil society. Rather, it was the way in which the
interests of particular groups were defended, not against other groups, but in the
name of deepening democracy and the rule of law for all. The democratizing and
regulating character of empirical civil society has contributed to the diminishing of
arbitrary state violence in Europe and elsewhere. Human and civil rights groups,
and legal reform organizations, have made a huge contribution to the reduction of
violence and to peaceful social interactions, as well as to democratization per se.
The third meaning of civil refers to the ordinary arena outside of the state,
and originally constructed around autonomy from military and religious power.
This came to be a very important dimension of the concept of civil society at its
birthas an arena which would tame absolutism and despotismas well as its
rebirth in the late twentieth century in the course of challenges to authoritarian,
totalitarian, and militaristic states. Here, the normative concept of civil conjures up
the participation of everyday citizens in seeking freedom from arbitrary authority
and other forms of coercion, an idea echoed in the peace movements that have
organized against militarization and the weapons of war, as well as against war itself,
over at least the last one hundred years.
What does this discussion tell us about civil society? As a normative concept, civil
society focuses attention on all the violence-reducing, civil, and civilizing components
of human interaction. At the very least, it suggests a prima facie case for a connection
with peace. However, its claim to some form of universality and relevance across cul-
tures and societies is seriously undermined by its association with the particularities
of the Enlightenment and the project of Western liberalism. Elias was not, in fact, sug-
gesting that the Western trajectory was superior to others, or that it was complete,
even though the discussion often seems to point to such claims. Ernest Gellner, for
example, explicitly argued against the idea that ritual-based and communal groups
belong in a conceptualization of civil society: Whatever Civil Society turns out to be
it is clearly something which is to be contrasted with both successful and unsuccessful
Ummas, and also with ritual-pervaded cousinly republics, not to mention, of course,
outright dictatorships or patrimonial societies (Gellner 1994, 43). Instead Gellner
turned to modular man, who combines individualism and egalitarianism and is able
to move into and out of his chosen social bonds without societal sanction, while still
being able to construct effective social cohesion against the state.
Gellners thinking is also relevant to the afnity between civil society and peace.
When modular man is emancipated in the way Gellner suggests, the individual
pursuit of self-interest, which was unleashed simultaneously with the rise of the
market economy, generates new forms of competition and conict in society as the
moral bonds of communities of neighbors and kinship are loosened. Liberalism has
not dealt very well with the conict, antagonism, and radical disagreement that
result (Mouffe 2005), in particular with group as opposed to individual claims to
rights (Kymlicka 1995), but nor has it been very good in cultivating agreement, par-
ticularly moral agreement, as Alasdair MacIntyre (2007) has argued. In liberal
thinking, civil society is seen as the way in which societies hold together in such
contexts by reconciling the pursuit of individual self interest with the notion that
society must be more than a set of individuals, but not, crucially, by building the
common good.
It was not inevitable that liberal views of civil society would dominate. A paral-
lel and very powerful idea of civil society emerged around cooperation and mutual-
ism (Black 1984). While such ideas were eventually marginalized, they have been
kept alive in various understandings of societal self-organization such as coopera-
tives, and in political ideas such as anarchism and some forms of socialism to this
day. This suggests an alternative thread, even in the West, to the liberal concept of
civil societyone which stresses a different set of values to individual freedom as
negative freedom, of protection against the despotisms of either the state or the
majority, and of values which promote the pursuit of the common good.
Although both understandings of civil society potentially contribute to the
human project of civility, rule-bound governance and freedom from oppression
these providing a framework which enable people to live without violenceit is this
other thread in civil society thinking which points to the components of the concept
which aspire to promote the interests of all rather than those of the self-interested
individual or advantaged groups of individuals, and thus construct the conditions
for people to live without violence. The contesting values which ow through the
civil society debate are precisely the reason why one version of this concept cannot
be privileged over all the others. However, civil society does offer a means for address-
ing these competing values through the associational dynamics that operate inde-
pendently from the state, the market, and the family, so long as they are embedded in
the ultimate value of pursuing shared norms as a necessary goal. Peace is precisely
such a goaluniversal in its aspiration, but deeply contested in its content.
2. Civil Society and Violence

The adjective civil can be attached to war or it can be attached to society, and the
fact that many forms of associational life are rarely civil in the senses discussed
above highlights the need to distinguish the normative aspects of civil society from
empirical realities. Of course, the empirical must also be used to explore the norma-
tive potential of a concept. From his historical studies, Michael Mann has drawn the
conclusion that civil society may be evil:
In civil society theory, democracy, peace and tolerance are said to result when
individuals are engaged in vibrant, dense social relations provided by voluntary
institutions, which protect them from the manipulations of state elites (Putnam
1993, 2000). This is nave. Radical ethno-nationalists often succeed precisely
because their civil society networks are denser and more mobilizing than those of
their more moderate rivals. This was true of the Nazis . . . and we see later that it
was also true of Serb, Croat and Hutu nationalists. Civil Society may be evil
(Mann 2005, 21),
There is no doubt that people associate for multiple purposes including violence, and
there is ample evidence that associations have been the means by which violent pur-
poses and uncivil actions have been nurtured in pursuit of revolutionary, nationalist,
and fascist goals. After 1925, the extreme Right in Germany permeated the associational
culture of bourgeois and workers, which had been predominantly liberal or socialist
before 1914. In other words, the Nazis conquered German civil society from within
(Ludwig Hoffman 2006, 83). Associational life has to be studied empirically to compre-
hend these processes. However, this vital empirical work should not be confused with
the normative ideal which the concept of civil society has represented in its many meta-
morphoses in political sociology and philosophy. Therefore, we must unpack what it is
that makes civil society civil as much as that which makes it evil.
Social bonds exist in all societal contexts and are part of our humanity. In west-
ern liberal discourse, civil society contrasts the senses of belonging and identity that
are xed at birth with those of free association and the search for new identities in
different associational modalities. In so doing, liberalism leads naturally to ideas
about emancipated individualism and the capacity for independent and critical
social action. At the same time, it seeks to distinguish itself from the bonds of soli-
darity and belonging which characterize societies which have not embraced the
project of modernity, or which nd themselves caught up in this project but at a
disadvantage. The appeal of the liberal concept of civil society is that it emphasizes
cross-cutting interests, so moving people closer to a less sectarian world view. The
danger is that it dismisses all other bonds as unable to contribute to this process by
their very nature, although they may in fact be a source of civility and peaceful
interaction because they are based on alternative values to liberalism which may be
more robust in promoting cooperation and solidarity.
Ethnic heterogeneity is correlated in statistical analyses with an increased pos-
sibility of civil war and violence (Hegre, Ellingsen, Gates, and Gleditsch 2001).
However, particularistic solidarities are not inevitably a source of violence or solely
a source of cousinly ritual, as Gellner expressed it. They can provide precisely the
kind of solidarities which protect people from adversity, as well as underpinning the
cooperative values that are important to a more positive view of peace. Some par-
ticularistic groups may tend to look inward, precisely because the outside world is
hostile in some way, or because they are protective of time-honored hierarchies.
Others are hybrids, seeking to support their own group while engaging with the
wider world. Overall, it may not be the mode of associational life that really matters
(as Gellner implied) but the values which lie behind it.
During the 1990s and 2000s, it became commonplace for participants at civil
society conferences to remind people that the bombers who blew up a federal build-
ing in Oklahoma City in 1995 were members of American bowling clubs, undermin-
ing the argument that only primordial ties generate violence as well as Putnams
emphasis on the positive social capital that bowling clubs supposedly generate
(Putnam 2000). However, it should be pointed out that the Oklahoma bombers were
not acting to defend their bowling club, and it was not the bowling club per se which
generated the bombers. Timothy McVeigh, the driving force behind the bombing,
was a disturbed ex-soldier. His mother had left his father at the age of ten; he was
bullied as a child and fascinated by guns; and he was deeply affected by his experi-
ences in the rst Gulf war (BBC News 2001). McVeigh emerged out of the socializing
process of a particular subculture in the United States, and today there are many
forms of violence in the West that reect an ongoing, unresolved tension between the
way people fashion their individual life journeys and their interdependencies, which
are replete with inequality, discrimination, and competition. High levels of violence
are strongly correlated with high levels of inequality (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009).
Individualistic forms of sociability can also generate conict and violence.
From the forgoing, it is clear that civil society cannot be about every kind of
social bonds or the trust that they generate, since trust can form among people who
embark on acts of extreme violence. In fact all forms of sociability can generate the
trust which Putnam and others have done so much to link with civil society.
Therefore, trust can be used for adverse purposes too, as Putnam himself came to
acknowledge: Al Qaeda, for instance, is an excellent example of social capital,
enabling its participants to accomplish goals they could not accomplish without
that network (2007, 138). So what is it about the nature of social bonds that strength-
ens the relationship of civil society to peace?
This question is often addressed in terms of the kinds of social capital that are
generated through associational interactions. Bonding social capital is contrasted
with bridging social capital, with the former bringing together people who are alike
and the latter bringing together those who differ in some important way. Putnam
(2007) suggests that these two forms of social capital are often erroneously counter-
posed to each other, as if high levels of bonding can never be compatible with high
levels of bridging, but this depends on the values at stake. Civil society can diminish
violence and build the kind of trust associated with peace only when it actively contrib-
utes to the conditions for nonviolence, encourages nonviolent forms of social interac-
tion, and promotes processes for imagining and constructing the common good across
social and other divides. This was the conclusion of Ahutosh Varshneys (2002) impor-
tant study of ethnic conict and civic life in northern India. Cross-communal civic life
played a vital role in ensuring that triggers to conict amongst Hindus and Muslims
did not erupt into extreme violence in some cities in the region, but did erupt where
similar civic interactions were absent. Such civic values do not necessarily translate into
either bonding or bridging. Instead they are anchored in building certain kinds of
human interactions and relationships. It is in this sense that Karstedt (2006, 58), in an
essay on the relationship between democracy and violence, argues that it is universalistic
bonds that matter when exploring this relationshipnot an empty universality but
one which explicitly promotes inclusionary and egalitarian values: The associational
bonds that develop within civil society provide mechanisms of outreach and general-
ized cooperation that can counterbalance individualistic practices . . . Trust relation-
ships are produced through universal bonds and the inclusionary mechanisms of
democracy, with democratic institutions as equally strong providers and enforcers of
these bonds. These vital social bonds are endangered by processes like social inequality
and ethnic and religious divisions that factionalize society.
Civil society as a normative concept is not evil, since it contains the potential for
building peaceful societies. However, empirical associations do not inevitably con-
tribute to either peace or violence. It is only by building distinctions into the concept
that we can enable civil society to be an impetus to peace-thinking and a stimulant to
peace-building in practice. The concept must encourage us to imagine the possibility
of peace as a common good, and a worthwhile goal. This runs the risk of constructing
uncivil society as a dichotomous Other to its apparently benign civil sibling, and
the real world is not usually so clear-cut. Nuance and complexity have to be invoked,
and a lot of discussion and intellectual effort invested in deciding precisely what makes
civil society civil in different contexts. However, by insisting on the distinction between
civil and uncivil, attention is drawn to the danger of evacuating civil society of its
content. Civil society must be invested of meaning, not emptied through particular
experiences that masquerade as a universalizing discourse, or through a failure to give
it a clear normative direction. The civil dimensions of the concept emerge clearly
when examined in the light of their potential opposites. Therefore, civil society is
worth retaining as a value-laden ideal, at least until something better replaces it. This
is because it highlights the civil and nonviolent values that are essential to a project
like peace-building. In this sense also, civil society provides a tool with intellectual and
normative precision that can be used against states that oppress and repress civil soci-
ety organisations in the name of their legitimate monopoly of violence. A normative
conceptualization of civil society challenges such abuses morally and enables civil
society organisations to offer justied resistance in the world as it is.
3. Civil Society and Peace-Building

Can civil society as a normative ideal illuminate the practice of peace-building? The
complexity underlying the norm-building aspects of empirical civil society has
already been acknowledged, but recognition of such complexity has rarely accom-
panied efforts to harness civil society for peace-building at the end of the twentieth
and the beginning of the twenty-rst centuries. Instead, peace-building became
associated with what has been called the liberal peace (Paris1997; Richmond 2005),
a partial vision based on neoliberal market values which many believe to have intro-
duced new sources of division and competition into fragile societies recovering
from prolonged war and violence. This has led many to abandon civil society as an
ideal, precisely because it became associated with this vision. But rather than aban-
doning the concept completely, I argue that it should be retained and its normative
content revitalized to embrace the contingent possibilities that empirical civil soci-
ety participation in peace-building implies.
In 1992, in the wake of the end of the Cold War and in a moment of renewed
optimism, the then-United Nations Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, out-
lined his agenda for peace, in which post-conict peace-building became a core
element of international action. This new agenda coincided with the revival of civil
society ideas in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Peace thinkers such as John Paul
Lederach (1997) were inuential in drawing attention to the importance of civil
society actors in ensuring that peace processes did not only involve armed parties at
war. An unprecedented explosion of activity ensued among civil society organiza-
tions, many of which emerged with a dedicated portfolio of activities and interest in
peace-building, encouraged by the international donor community.
As these activities began to be scrutinized and evaluated, however, they were
often found to be wanting. As well as theoretical critiques of the entire enterprise,
there were many specic criticisms of concrete practice in particular countries and
contexts (Belloni 2001; Orjuela 2003; Pouligny 2005; Pearce 1999; Pearce 2005).
Pouligny (2005, 499500) sums up the arguments of these critiques as follows:
Ultimately, most outsiders tend to reduce the main characteristics and richness of
any civil society: its diversity. In our frequent quest for homogeneity, we tend to
seek a consensus or a common view; however, this does not exist in any
society, and certainly not in a post-war period. A so-called common belief is
neither necessary nor even desirable for remedying the real problem: a long
contradictory process of dening a new social contract. Historians and sociolo-
gists have shown us that such processes rarely unfold in sanctied harmony but
are rather the outcome of successive negotiations or, indeed, of concrete struggles.
Neither can they result from dogmatic voluntarism alone. Yet, most donors and
agencies continue to believe in such a process, as shown by the creation and
sponsoring of a countless number of consortiums and platformsnot to
mention the multiplication of coordination meetings of all kinds that, amongst
other consequences, justify the complaints of leaders of local organizations that
they no longer have time to actually work!
Rather than facilitating activities in each context that supported civil society actors to
open up new spaces, build relationships in and across society, and advocate to the
state, these actors have been drawn into implementing particular models of peace by
the availability and steering effects of funding. For example, a three-year study of civil
society and peace-building by Paffenholz (2009, 2010) took a functional view of
civil societys role in peace-building in order to put more empirical esh on this criti-
cal debate. It identied seven such functions: protection, monitoring, advocacy, social-
ization, social cohesion, facilitation, and service delivery. It also used a wide denition
of civil society which included traditional and clan groups as well as profes-
sional associations, clubs, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), but its
understanding of peace-building was quite narrowly focused on the ve to ten years

after the end of large-scale organized violence. The study took a more measured view
of the contributions of civil society organizations in such contexts than the overly
optimistic claims of the donors, specifying the phases and moments in which civil
society actors, as opposed to other actors, can play a positive role. It represents a new
generation of efforts to understand the empirical potential of civil society organiza-
tions in particular contexts and moments of postwar recovery, and argues that they
can indeed play a signicant role alongside other actors. In this way, the study and
others like it help to redeem the relationship between civil society and peace-building,
demonstrating with precision the positive roles that some civil society organizations
play while criticizing others which, for example, remain elite-based and distant from
the main body of society, offering apolitical solutions to deeply political problems.
In Guatemala, for example, donor funding poured into the country in the wake of
the Peace Accords of 1996, creating a well-funded sector of urban-based NGOs. Some
of these NGOs became effective advocates for security sector reform and human rights
protection, but with limited connections to the mostly indigenous and impoverished
rural dwellers who had borne the brunt of army massacres during the countrys pro-
tracted civil war (Howell and Pearce 2001). The state itself was increasingly under-
mined from within by criminal and parallel powers, and was unable to implement the
reforms proposed by civil society organizations. Yet on the margins of donor funding
circles, people did not stop organizing to protect their communities from mining com-
panies, demand land reform, and promote the rights of indigenous women, for exam-
ple. Some NGOs did manage to retain their roots in these struggles, enabling them to
survive the subsequent decline in donor funding, albeit with difculty.
The example of Guatemala highlights the need to distinguish between the roles of
specic forms of organization at particular moments in time in enhancing the poten-
tial for fostering the conditions that encourage people to live without violence over
the long term. Peace-building, at least in the sense discussed here, may be less about
highly focused initiatives and more about contingent activities in the civil society
arena which open up societies to competing ideas and values reecting the complexity
of the search for peace. They might involve challenges to the gender relationships and
expectations of masculinity which perpetuate the male-on-male use of violence
responsible for the vast majority of deaths and injuries in the world. They might ques-
tion the assumption that violence in the private sphere is not a problem for the public
policy arena. They might build space for new social actors or previously excluded and
subordinated groups to feel part of the debate about the future of their society. They
might question forms of wealth production, the distribution of resources, and the
nature of security provision. They might, in other words, generate debate about the
nature of the common good in any particular context. Enhancing our knowledge of
civil society as a value-producing and value-contesting arena and how it transforms
each societys understanding of the meaning of, and potential for, peace, could pro-
vide much sharper conceptual tools for recognizing when empirical civil society is
truly able to move people in these directions. Such an unashamedly normative inter-
pretation of civil society may challenge some of the liberal meanings attached to this
concept, but it would also move us towards a shared ethical and moral interpretation
of peace-building. Civil society, like peace, could once again become part of the politi-
cal world, in which societies move towards nonviolent ways of addressing their differ-
ences and building the conditions required to live without violence.
4. Conclusion
This chapter has argued that conceptually, civil society has an afnity with the idea
of peace, since both revolve around the process of constructing the common good.
Peace must be understood positively as the process of building the conditions for
human beings to live without violence, as well as negativelyas the absence of war,
for example. In this process, empirical distinctions must be made between those
forms of sociability that promote violence and those that build peace, contrasting
civil to uncivil society. Civil society can then be dened in terms of the values which
correlate positively with the goal-directed activities of peace-building. Such ideas
are complex, and the values involved require ongoing public debate and disagree-
ment. Universality must be constructed through a complex process of conict and
contestation in empirical civil societies. There will be no guaranteed outcomes, but
striving for an outcome is a goal in and of itself. In this task, the normative content
of civil societythe shared norms of the good societyare essential to the proj-
ect of a common humanity. They must be defended if we are to preserve the space
and independence that are necessary for associational life to play its full part in
peace-building effectively.
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chapter 33
CIVIL SOCIETY AND POWER
john gaventa
Can civil society transform power relations, and if so, how and under what condi-
tions? These questions are not easily answered. Much depends on what one means
by civil society and ones understanding of power, concepts on which there is little
consensus. Even when agreement exists on the meanings of these concepts, further
debates revolve around complex empirical issues: when is power transformed, and
how do we know it when we see it? Generalizations around these questions are dif-
cult and perhaps even dangerous, since civil society, power, and transformation
are deeply embedded in specic social and political contexts, rooted in historical
processes, and often dynamic and contested in theory and in practice.
Given these challenges, the goals of this chapter are limited. Section 1 briey
recounts the meanings of civil society and argues that each carries with it a parallel
understanding of power and its components. Section 2 examines the changing
forms and spaces of power, as well as the levels across which they occur, and explores
some of their implications for civil society in practice. The third section of the chap-
ter explores important, though inconclusive, empirical evidence of civil societys
transformational role. Ultimately, the conclusion suggests, the issue must become
more focused on questions of power for whom, civil society of what kinds, and
which forms of transformation are desirable or desired.
1. Civil Society and Power

While there are multiple of denitions of civil society, three broad understandings
stand out in the literature: civil society as a description of types of actors, as a public
sphere or arena, and as a set of norms and values which promote a good or more
civil society and power 417
civil society (Edwards 2009). Each approach also carries with it a different set of
assumptions andimplicitly or explicitlya parallel approach to the understand-
ing of power.
In the rst of these denitions, civil society is a seen as a set of nonstate, often
nonmarket actors, most commonly including grassroots and professional associa-
tions, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), labor unions, churches, and social
movements. The assumption is often that such civil society organizations will serve
as a counterforce to the unchecked power of state or market actors. Such organiza-
tions are seen as agents of empowerment through which citizens develop their
capacities to become aware of their rights and agency, mobilize to act, and pursue
democratizing or social justice aims. While there are many examples of such roles
in practice, the literature is also lled with examples of the opposite behavior
pointing to the role that civil society organizations may play in legitimating, rather
than challenging the status quo, as well as to huge variations of power within and
between civil society actors themselves (Bebbington, Hickey, and Mitlin 2007;
Shutt 2009).
Despite these variations, understanding civil society as a set of actors ts neatly
with an actor-oriented approach to the understanding and analysis of power. In this
view, perhaps most famously articulated by Steven Lukes in his seminal work Power:
A Radical View (1974), power may be understood as the power of A (one actor or set
of actors) over B (another actor or set of actors). To put the matter sharply, Lukes
writes, A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to
do, but he may also exercise power over him by inuencing, shaping or determining
his very wants (1974, 23). From this perspective, understanding civil societys trans-
formational role would involve, therefore, examining when civil society organiza-
tions and actors are able to shape or alter the actions, agendas, or norms of other
actors, such as states and markets. Such an approach can also be used to examine
the nature of power between and across civil society organizations, such as in
debates on whether larger international NGOs dominate or crowd out smaller com-
munity-based associations, or how decisions are shaped within coalitions and social
movements. Note also that while Lukess approach is very actor-focused, it also
includes the power of actors to shape norms and values.
The second denition of civil society focuses on its role as an arena, space, or
sphere in which public action occurs. This approach draws heavily from other theo-
rists in the tradition of Habermas, who examines the nature of deliberation in the
public sphere, and from Gramsci, who saw civil society as an arena standing in ten-
sion with political society, and which could be a force for hegemony and counter-
hegemony. To discuss civil society as an arena immediately raises questions about
how power shapes the nature of deliberation inside it, as well as the boundaries
which surround it. Hayward (1998, 2), for example, challenges the actor-focused
approach and argues for de-facing power by reconceptualizing it as a network of
social boundaries that constrain and enable action for all actors. She argues that
freedom is the capacity to to participate effectively in shaping the boundaries that
dene for them the eld of what is possible (1998, 12), drawing heavily on Foucaults
work that challenges the idea that power is wielded by people or groups by way of
episodic or sovereign acts of domination or coercion. Instead, Foucault sees power
as dispersed and pervasive. Power is everywhere and comes from everywhere, so in
this sense is neither an agency nor a structure (Foucault 1998, 63, quoted by Pettit
2010). Rather, it is a kind of metapower or regime of truth that pervades society,
and which is in constant ux and negotiation. Power is also a form of ensuring
conformity in society, as seen in Foucaults studies of prisons, schools, and mental
hospitals where people learned to discipline themselves and behave according to
established norms that are communicated through dominant forms of discourse.
For Gramsci, civil society was an also arena where ideas and beliefs were shaped,
especially through knowledge organizations such as the media, universities, and
religious organizations, which in turn could both challenge dominant ideas in a
counterhegemonic way and also manufacture consent and reproduce domination
(Gramsci 1971).
In this approach, power is also linked to norms and values, but its key determi-
nants are discourse, knowledge, and culture. Those who seek to understand civil
societys role through this framework therefore focus on the nature of discourse and
deliberation within and around the public sphere, as well as the nature of contesta-
tion inside it. For Chandhoke (2005, 3) for example, civil society, as distinct from
society as a whole, can be conceived as that part of society where people, as rights-
bearing citizens, meet to discuss and enter into dialogue about the polity. It is in this
sense that civil society is absolutely indispensable for democracy in its promise of
an engaged citizenry. Chandhoke points out that the nature of deliberation within
this arena may serve to re-enforce, as well as to challenge, established inequalities, a
point developed by Cornwall and Coelho (2006), who interrogate in practice
whether we can see participatory public spheres as spaces of change. Others are
even more skeptical about the possibility that civil society can transform power
relations. Drawing on Foucault and others, for example, Lipschutz (2007, 225)
argues that, far from being transformative of power, much of global civil society is
a central and vital element in an expanding global neo-liberal regime of govern-
mentality. Global civil society is constituted out of social relations within that
regime and . . . helps to legitimise, reproduce and sometimes transform internally
that regime, its operation and its objectives.
The third denition of civil society as a set of valuesincluding notions of
solidarity and social capital, tolerance and respect for pluralism, courage and
voluntarismis heavily contested, with critics pointing to the uncivil aspects of
some civil society associations, to growing intolerance, and to voluntarism and
empowerment as neoliberal values which can serve to weaken state-based approaches
to achieving the common good. This approach also carries with it a parallel under-
standing of power, understood in terms of the purposes for which it is used. One
common understanding sees power as oppressive or as power over others.
Others, however, see power as productive, as the power to bring about positive
change, mutually constructed by multiple actors, and not a zero-sum game of win-
ners and losers. This approach carries with it a focus on power with (similar to civil
society concepts of building horizontal power through associations, networks, and

coalitions), and power within, in which power refers to a recognition of ones inter-
nalized sense of agency and empowerment. In this sense, civil societys role in trans-
forming power relations may be seen not only in how it confronts negative power
over, but also in how it co-constructs a new society with others (Eyben et al. 2006;
Rowlands 1997).
However, for many theorists of power, the norms and culture of the new or
good society are themselves intertwined with and part of power, not separate
from it. In exploring the relation between culture and power, Bourdieu, for exam-
ple, develops the concept of habitus, meaning the way society becomes deposited
in persons in the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured
propensities to think, feel and act in determinate ways (Wacquant 2005, 316, cited
in Navarro 2006, 16). Actors and their practices are both shaped by and help to
shape these dispositions. As Haugaard (2002, 229) summarizes, in this sense power
is both interpersonal and systemic. Because individuals exercise it over each other,
power is negative, but equally, since strategy entails habitus, order and culture, is
simultaneously positively constructive.
Hence, for each approach to civil societyas an actor, arena, and set of
valuesthere are parallel ways to understand and analyze power. Each approach
nds within it examples of civil society both as transformative of power and also as
shaped by and constitutive of it. While these broad schools of thought are useful,
more specic tools are required to analyze the workings of power in any given
context.
2. The Changing Nature of Power and the

Challenges for Civil Society
Whatever conceptual approach is deployed, it is clear that the nature and manifesta-
tions of power are changing, with strong implications for civil society. The rise of
concepts of co-governance, which link states and societies in new forums (Ackerman
2004), or of public-private partnerships, social enterprise, and philanthrocapital-
ism (Edwards 2010), mean that neat divisions between civil society, market, and
state begin to give way, leading to a focus on networked governance or networks
of power rather than on single actors alone (Hajer and Wagenaar 2003). With the
rise of global governance and new sites of authority, the analysis of power must also
address the multitiered and multilayered spheres that are emerging, and their inter-
actions, rather than focus on any single public sphere (Bererenskoetter and Williams
2007). And with the growth of knowledge and expertise, social media, and the inter-
net as tools of soft power for winning hearts and minds (Lukes 2007), more
attention must be paid to how values and cultures of power and powerlessness are
constructed and maintained, as well as resisted and challenged. As Beck (2005, 34)
writes, politics is no longer subject to the same boundaries as before, and is no
longer tied solely to state actors and institutions, the result being that additional
players, new roles, new resources, unfamiliar rules and new contradictions and con-
icts appear on the scene. In the old game, each playing piece made one move only.
This is no longer true of the new nameless game for power and domination.
In a long tradition of work on power and democracy, power is often under-
stood in its visible forms, by focusing on who participates in, and benets from, the
shaping of decisions in public arenas. In an earlier work based on experience in an
Appalachian valley where quiescence rather than voice seemed to be the response to
high levels of inequality, I challenged that view, drawing upon Lukess three faces
or dimensions of power that sought to explain not only the visible, but also the
hidden and invisible forms of power (Gaventa 1980). More recently, I have argued
that these faces of power constitute but one continuum or dimension. When con-
sidered in relationship to civil society, power can also be understood in relation to
the spaces or arenas of power from the claimed to the closed, as well as to the levels
of power, from the local to the global. Linking these three dimensions of forms,
levels, and spaces, one can construct a power cube in which power shapes and is
shaped by each dimension, and in which power can simultaneously be used as a
form of resistance as well as domination (Gaventa 2006).
This approach has already been used by civil society actors to analyze the pos-
sibilities and pathways for transforming power in their work (Participation, Power
and Social Change Team 2010). While one can approach this task from any dimen-
sion of power, it is important to recognize that each dimension is only part of the
picture, and is constantly interacting with the others. By understanding the interac-
tive nature of power in this way, we can also begin to assess the transformative pos-
sibilities of civil society in challenging power, as well as how civil society itself is
shaped by power relations of various kinds.
The rst dimension of the power cube focuses on the forms of power, as they
affect what voices and issues emerge and predominate in the public sphere. The rst
form (or what Lukes referred to as face) of power refers to visible power and is
closely linked to theories of how pluralist democracy is supposed to work. It may be
seen, for example, through analyzing who wins and who loses in the public arena,
such as town meetings, legislative councils, village councils, or other settings. Yet as
power theorists conrm, power is rarely fully visible. Equally important are forms
of hidden power which help to shape the public agenda, organizing some actors,
issues, or values into the public arena and onto the agenda while discouraging or
preventing the inclusion of others (Bachrach and Baratz 1962). As Schattschneider
(1960, 105) put it: whoever decides what the game is about decides who gets in the
game. But even more insidious than the power to control the agenda through the
suppression of voices and issues, argued Lukes (1974), is the power to keep issues
from arising at all through the shaping of values and consensus, or the internaliza-
tion of forms of powerlessness such that conict does not arise in the rst place
what we now know as invisible power (VeneKlassen and Miller 2002; Gaventa 2006).
These latter forms of power connect to Gramscian ideas of hegemony or to Foucaults

understanding of how knowledge is used in disciplinary ways by shaping the bound-
aries and norms of public discourse.
For civil society actors and organizations that seek to promote transformation,
each dimension of power has produced an array of political repertoires. Public are-
nas are full of interest groups, NGOs, professional associations, social movements,
and others who use advocacy to debate, inuence, and shape decisions on key pub-
lic issues. Sometimes, such groups are critiqued for becoming more and more pro-
fessionalized, encouraging a model of speaking for rather than with or by the people
directly concerned. Other traditions have focused on mobilizing popular participa-
tion through people-based advocacy designed to challenge the hidden faces of
power which keep certain voices or issues off the agenda (Clark et al. 2002). A third
tradition has focused on challenging how power shapes ideas and socializes people
to internalize a sense of powerlessnessas seen, for example, in the awareness-
building and popular education work of Paulo Freire-inspired conscientisation pro-
grams or in feminist approaches that start at the personal level to build power from
within. Others have argued that only when all of these repertoires come together
through advocacy, mobilization, and awareness-building does transformative
change begin to occur.
While such approaches focus on the forms of power and how to challenge them,
the second dimension of the cube looks at the spaces of power, at where as well as
how power is made visible. As with the forms of power, one can think of a contin-
uum of types of spaces. From the perspective of civil society actors, many decision-
making spaces of the state and the marketand indeed of civil society actors
themselvesremain highly closed, removed from public scrutiny and participa-
tion. At the other end of the spectrum are claimed or created spaces of engagement
such as voluntary associations, social movements, and local debating or cultural
groups, which ordinary people themselves create. Lying between these two posi-
tions are an increasing array of invited, cogovernance, or hybrid public spaces
in which citizens engage states and markets through formal or informal consulta-
tive and decision-making mechanisms (Cornwall 2002).
Each of these types of spaces is lled with, and is reective of, the power rela-
tions that surround them, and each is associated with distinct traditions of civil
society action that try to challenge how power is manifested. Campaigns for greater
transparency, freedom of information, and public accountability have tried to open
up spaces that were previously closed, while other approaches have urged the
responsible exercise of power within these campaigns themselves. At the other end
of the spectrum a huge literature exists on the contribution of peoples associations,
social movements, and cultural groups to citizen empowerment, countering hege-
monic ideas, and contesting power, as well as critiques of the forms of power and
exclusion that develop within these spaces themselves. Increasingly, studies of
hybrid public spaces are asking important questions about who participates and
deliberates within them, what issues reach the agenda, and whether more participa-
tory forms of governance which link civil society and the state in new ways lead to
different and more democratic outcomes than more elitist approaches (Spink et al.
2009). Here too growing evidence exists that transformational change comes not
through a single strategy or in a single space, but through alliances and mechanisms
which link champions on the inside of closed spaces with pressures from outside,
a conclusion which challenges the notion that civil society mobilization by itself is
a sufcient condition for progressive change (Green 2008; Gaventa and McGee
2010).
These spaces of powerfrom closed to claimedare cross-cut by the differ-
ent levels of power and the dynamics that exist between them, constituting the third
dimension of the power cube (Gaventa 2007). A growing literature on global gover-
nance warns of the dangers of focusing only on the local, or the national in a
globalizing world, requiring consideration of the role of global or transnational
civil society in emerging political regimes (Edwards and Gaventa 2001; Batliwala
and Brown 2006). To some extent the debate on the levels and sites of power is not
new. For many years, those concerned with this subject have argued about where
power is located. Feminist scholars have challenged the focus by political science on
the search for power in the public sphere, arguing for the primacy of power rela-
tions at the intimate or household level. Some argue that participatory practice
must begin locally, because it is in the arenas of everyday life that people are able to
resist power and construct their own voice. Others argue for the importance of the
nation state and its role in mediating power relations, suggesting that the possibili-
ties of local spaces often depend on the extent to which power is legitimated and
regulated nationally. But for many, the study of power can no longer be focused
only on one particular level or place. As Held and McGrew (2003, 11) write, for
example, the exclusive link between territory and political power has been broken.
The contemporary era has witnessed layers of governance spreading within and
across boundaries.
For scholars and activists concerned with change, this reconguration of politi-
cal power also has enormous consequences. On the one hand, the globalization of
power has created a vast array of political opportunities beyond the national level in
which civil society actors can engage, by demanding greater transparency and
accountability, participating in policy formulation and monitoring, and pressing
for formal mechanisms for redress (Scholte 2002). But not only do these shifts open
up broader possibilities for action by relatively powerless groups at any one level,
they also create new opportunities through the interaction of the different levels
themselves. Those seeking to act on local or national injustices may choose to con-
front those perceived to be responsible by acting at other levels of power, in order to
exercise their voice and express their demands. Keck and Sikkink (1998, 13), for
example, demonstrate how advocacy networks may employ a boomerang pattern,
in which state A blocks redress to organizations within it; they activate networks,
whose members pressure their own state and (if relevant) a third-party organiza-
tion, which in turn pressure state A.
However, just as new levels and spaces bring opportunities for civil society actors
to engage with and confront power relations, so they also raise new challenges
concerning civil societys own power and legitimacy. Increasingly in the civil society
literature, questions are asked about representational issues such as who speaks for
whom across boundaries, and about possible disconnections or tensions between
civil society actors at the global, national, and local levels (Batliwala 2002; Van Rooy
2004). Demands for accountability among other state and nonstate actors have led to
corresponding pressures for civil society organizations to strengthen their own
accountability as well. Gaventa and Tandon (2010, 4) nd that for some citizens,
there are new opportunities for participation in transnational processes of action,
resulting in the emergence of a new sense of global citizenship and solidarity. Yet for
many other ordinary citizens, changes in global authority may have the opposite
effect, strengthening the layers and discourses of power that limit the possibilities for
their local action, and constrainingor at least, not enablinga sense of citizen
agency. Much depends, they argue, on the forms of mobilization, the role of media-
tors, and the politics of knowledge that shape the possibilities and practices of citi-
zenship in response to changes in the global landscape.
While looking at each dimension of power, it is equally important to under-
stand the constant and dynamic interaction of these forms, spaces, and levels of
power with each other. The spaces of power affect whose voice and knowledge are
visible inside them, while mobilization across the levels of power can serve to
strengthen certain voices in the public arena and create new forms of exclusion for
others. To transform power fundamentally suggests that actors must be able to work
across forms, spaces, and levels simultaneously a scope and range of action that
few civil society organizations can accomplish alone. Ultimately, such an analysis
suggests, a key challenge for civil society is how to develop more democratic and
cross-cutting alliances which also address questions of representation and account-
ability. From this perspective, the power of civil society to foster change is deeply
linked to how it engages with issues of its own power within, with, and over others.
3. The Transformative Potential

of Civil Society
At least in the world of international development, there has been an implicit
assumption over recent decades that greater participation by civil society actors will
lead to outcomes that are positive. At the same time, the evidence surrounding this
assumption, and the conditions under which it is correct, are mixedwith some
arguing for the empirical virtues of civil society engagement and others stressing its
risks and failures. In the larger literature on civil society and democracy one sees
similar debates, with some pointing to the contributions of civil society to deepen-
ing democracy (e.g., Wainwright 2005), and others warning of the darker side of
civic engagement. In attempting to shed light on these debates, Gaventa and Barrett
(2010) draw from one hundred case studies of citizen action across twenty countries
to answer the following question: What difference does citizen engagement make?
Using a meta-synthesis approach, they coded over 800 examples of citizen engage-
ment in associations, social movements, and campaigns, or participatory forms of
governance with the state, which produced both positive and negative outcomes.
While the study does not focus on power per se, it provides a useful framework
through which to explore how these forms of citizen action have contributed to
broader processes of social and political change.
On the one hand, the study offers a fairly positive narrative. Of the 800 out-
comes coded, 75 percent were considered positive in terms of their contribution
to strengthening democracy and development. On the other hand, the study
issues strong warnings about the risks of engagement; for every type of positive
outcome, there are parallel or mirror images which can also be much more nega-
tive. The rst important outcome of citizen engagement sounds almost tautologi-
cal, but it conrms an argument long found in thinking on participation and
democracy: citizen action serves to create better citizens (Pateman 1970).
Engagement is itself a way of strengthening a sense of citizenship, and the knowl-
edge and sense of awareness necessary to achieve and activate it. It can also
strengthen the practices and efcacy of citizen participation through more effec-
tive action, the transfer of skills across issues and arenas, and the thickening of
alliances and networks. These, the study argues, are not only intermediate out-
comes, but they are also ends in and of themselves, and they help to measure the
health of civil society and the dispositions and efcacy of the citizens who ani-
mate it. For example, Kabeer, Mahmud, and Castro (2010) explore the impact of
membership in civil society organizations in Bangladesh and nd clear evidence
of how it helps to build awareness of rights and political capabilities among the
citizenrybut also that it does not always do so. Much depends on the style of
mobilization undertaken by the organizations themselves. Those that focused
only on service delivery or the provision of micro credit, for example, were found
to have little impact on political empowerment, whereas those that took a broader
social mobilization approach were seen to bring about change in political and
social as well as economic arenas.
In turn, greater awareness among citizens, coupled with stronger citizenship
practices, can challenge the status quo more effectively, helping to contribute to the
building of more responsive states which can deliver services, protect and extend
human rights, and foster a culture of accountability. They can also contribute to a
broader sense of inclusion among previously marginalized groups in society andat
least potentiallyincrease social cohesion across different communities. Strong
examples may be seen, for example, in efforts by the Treatment Action Campaign in
South Africa to challenge national policies as well as public norms on HIV/AIDS
(Friedman 2010), and in the work of the freedom of information movement in
India, which not only changed the law, but also helped to empower thousands of
ordinary citizens to use the law for independent action (Baviskar 2010).
However, while providing compelling evidence of the positive outcomes of citi-

zen engagement, the study also recognizes that such participation is not always used
for positive purposes. It can lead to a sense of disempowerment and a reduced sense
of agency, or to new knowledge dependencies, or to re-enforced exclusion due to
new forms of awareness. Although engagement can contribute to strengthened
practices of participation, at other times participation is perceived as meaningless,
tokenistic, or manipulative. In other instances, it can contribute to new skills and
alliances, but which are used for corrupt or other nonpositive ends, or are captured
by elites, or raise new issues of accountability and representation. Participation can
challenge state power but can also come up against bureaucratic brick walls and
reprisals, including violence from state actors against those who challenge the status
quo. And new spaces for civil society engagement can reinforce old hierarchies
based on gender, caste, or ethnicity; and contribute to greater competition and con-
ict across groups who compete for recognition and resources in new ways.
4. Conclusion
As these ndings make clear, civil society engagement is not in and of itself inher-
ently transformative, though it has transformative potential. The studies from
which they are taken go on to point to a number of factors that affect the degree to
which this potential is realized. First, the nature and quality of mobilization and
associational strategies matter greatly, not just the size or density of civil society
organizations alone. Second, the ability to develop links and alliances with reform-
ers inside the state and other institutions is critical, since civil society groups can
rarely achieve major change alone. Third, changes in globalization, including the
rise of new forms of communications and networking beyond borders, pose new
opportunities for action, while also offering new barriers to inclusion. As section 2
concluded, the capacity to link action and activities across spaces, forms, and levels
of power is necessary because transformation requires multidimensional and com-
plex approaches to change, not a single magic bullet.
While these emerging lessons are important, more work is obviously needed. A
key task for the futurefor theorists and practitioners alikeis to move beyond
simplistic debates about the virtues or failures of civil society. Through more
rigorous empirical work, we need to develop higher-order and more nuanced theo-
ries of the ways in which states, markets, and civil societies interact in different
regimes to explain differential outcomes. In turn, far more robust understandings
are required of how concepts and practices of civil society intersect with theories
and manifestations of power, and of how, and under what conditions, civil society
actors, arenas, and values will transform, rather than reproduce, unjust and unequal
power relations.
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chapter 34
CIVIL SOCIETY
AND THE MARKET
simon zadek
Encounters with business and the market have been woven throughout the his-
tory of civil society for at least three hundred years, but the pace and intensity of
these encounters has increased dramatically since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
birth of corporate social responsibility in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some see
markets and civil society as natural allies, mutually dependent and working together
to resolve social problems. Others see them as necessary antagonists, creating change
out of conict to avoid the co-optation that might strip them of their distinctive
strengths and values. And a large and emerging middle ground nds inspiration in
combining elements from both these views, celebrating the birth of new institu-
tions that can no longer be categorized as belonging to one sector or the other. Can
and does civil society transform markets, and if so how and to what long-term
effect?
This chapter answers these questions by exploring three levels of effects of con-
temporary forms of civil society action on the behavior of market actors, and evalu-
ating their social, environmental, and economic impacts. The tactical level of action
concerns itself with the specic results of such efforts, such as a campaign against a
corporation; the strategic level asks whether a more ambitious agenda and potential
for change has been sacriced in return for less substantive tactical successes; and
the systemic level explores whether the underlying conditions for civil society action
on market transformation are themselves shifting in the light of experience and
broader global changes. If so, what are the implications of this shift? These three
levels of action are woven through the analysis that follows, which begins by setting
the debate in context and explaining the rise of civil regulation, and then provides
a brief summary of civil societys impact. Sections 3 and 4 explore new economic
civil society and the market 429
and geopolitical developments that complicate and enrich the encounter between
civil society and the market, and section 5 concludes by re-evaluating the results of
these encounters in the light of these new developments.
1. Civil Society and the Market

Civil society has always sought to inuence markets and reshape their impact
(Korten 1995). Contemporary experience should be appreciated in that context, but
it must also be explored for its specic forms and outcomes (Zadek 2007). Since the
late 1980s, the landscape of civil society engagement with business has been trans-
formed, with many more, and more diverse, civil society actors, more extensive and
intimate engagement between what historically were often oppositional forces, and
more complex civil society strategies and tactics designed to affect the drivers of
change, from traditional public pressure through to codesign with business, and
even coinvestment and coproduction of innovative products and processes with
potential for more benign societal impacts. Changing geopolitics are playing an
increasingly important role, with the growing presence of civil society and business
actors from the South mixed in with the voices of their governments and their
underlying political cultures and institutional arrangements.
If ever a eld of practice was in rapid ux, it is the relationship between civil
society and markets. With this ux have come profound disagreements over strate-
gic options and their consequences. The professionalization of large parts of civil
society has brought with it not only pragmatic compromises necessary to satisfy
their need for resources, but also new patterns of social identity among practitio-
ners and in their politics, values and lifestyles (Chambers 1993; Said 1996). Multi-
billion-dollar programs to address health and education, for example, can only be
accessed or mobilized if engagement with business is preferred to tackling the more
profound challenges that concern ownership, governance, and the institutionalized
objectives of prot. And even where deals are struck and new standards set, old
battle lines are reopened when basic rights have to be renegotiated in the light of
new cadres of businesses that emerge from political cultures unafraid to reshape
priorities or even fundamental norms as enshrined in international conventions.
Whether or not to engage with business is no longer a useful question.
Engagement covers a diverse range of options, and nonengagement is an increas-
ingly implausible proposition given the interdependence of civil society actions
with market-based technologies, communications pathways, and sources of exper-
tise and resources (Elkington and Hartigan 2009). Autonomy must be an objective
requirement of engagement, but it can no longer be synonymous with complete
independence or other framing conceptions of purity of approach or community.
The sheer range of these approaches belies comprehensive treatment in a chapter of
this length. Therefore, the emergingand contentiousroles of civil society as
market actors themselves through procurement, ownership, and social enterprise,

and their adoption of business-like institutional arrangements, processes, and cul-
tures, are not considered here (Edwards 2010). My focus is on the successes and
failures of civil societys attempts to shape markets through what has been called
civil regulation (Zadek 2007).
2. The Successes and Failures

of Civil Regulation
Civil regulation, the capacity of civil society to change market rules through direct
pressure rather than the traditional route of lobbying for statutory changes, was
born out of a particular moment in corporate development and broader political
history (Vogel 2006). Neoliberal economic policies implemented during the 1980s
undermined the social contract between business and Western societies, a fragmen-
tation that was reinforced because the feared counterpoint of the Soviet Union
could no longer be invoked (Gray 2000). At the same time, a rapid shift in the locus
of economic value from production up the value chain towards the brand, marked
out a period of remarkable success for Northern-based corporations across global
markets, driven in particular by the ethos of privatization that opened markets up
and at the same time further fractured the underlying social contract that was medi-
ated by the state. Simultaneously, the rise of the Internet and the capacity of rela-
tively resource-poor civil society organizations to mobilize media-friendly action
was matched by the emergence of the rst generation of multinational nongovern-
mental organizations (NGOs) such as Oxfam and the Worldwide Fund for Nature,
which mirrored the rise of their corporate counterparts as had labor unions in the
early development of industrial capitalism.
Civil regulation has largely relied on corporations sense of brand vulnerability,
which perhaps ironically increases in highly concentrated, oligopolistic markets.1 In
the second half of the 1990s, businesses increasingly yielded to civil society demands
before stiffening their position because of concerns about brand damage and asso-
ciated nancial losses. Campaigning was founded on several iconic cases, including
Shells reversal of its decision to sink the Brent Spa Oil Platform in the North Sea in
the face of a media-savvy Greenpeace campaign, and the anti-Nike sweatshop cam-
paigns that, to some, demonstrated all that was wrong with globalization and capi-
talism in general (Zadek 2004). In some instances real damage was done by these
actions, reinforcing the view for a time that campaigns of almost any form were a
potentially lethal force. However, over the years this simplistic view has eroded with
more experience of what does and does not count in practice, and as important,
how best to inoculate the corporation against the force of civil society action. Nike
still faces a steady stream of actions by anti-sweatshop campaigners, yet no longer
reacts with the same fear that marked their earlier responses. Today, British
Petroteum (BP), once a leading corporate advocate of sustainability, feels it can
walk away from civil society-business coalitions such as the U.S. Climate Action
Partnership despite this being a signicant blow for the campaign to bring in car-
bon dioxide emissions controls in the U.S., with little fear of redress from civil
society.2
Several changes underpin this shift in behavior. Through experience, businesses
have learned to distinguish where real brand threats exist. Competitive pressures
have intensied, making it harder for businesses to make changes that, even in
the short term, disadvantage them in the marketplace. And new, less campaign-
vulnerable business leaders are emerging in the South, a point I return to below.
The most signicant change, however, has been the development of closer relation-
ships between business and civil society. Across many elds, their relationship has
evolved from their traditional roles as poachers and gamekeepers to one of
uncomfortable bedfellows. The Worldwide Fund for Nature has led the way in
creating global partnerships with individual corporations, including high-prole
agreements with the Coca Cola Company and the French cement giant Lafarge.3
Labor activists have joined with their erstwhile corporate targets in forming inter-
national, multicompany initiatives such as the Ethical Trading Initiative and the
Fair Labour Association.4 Human rights activists and anticorruption groups have
joined forces with mining companies in the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.5 And health
activists sit together with the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies through the
Global Alliance for Vaccines Initiative and other multi-billion-dollar partnerships
designed to deliver health services to poor communities.6
Today, there are hundreds of initiatives that together have created a soft gover-
nance web, spread across every market and issue from nanotechnology to sh.7
These initiatives have sought to reshape markets by blending voluntary rules for
business to follow, public and private nance, and the combined competencies of
civil society, business, and government in delivering innovative designs and imple-
mentation practices. Some of these initiatives have achieved signicant market pen-
etration. The Marine Stewardship Council, for example, covers 10 percent of the
global wild sh catch, and the Equator Principles cover more than 80 percent of
cross-border project investments.8 Such collaborative ventures have inuenced the
broader political narrative about public policy and international development. For
example, President Lula of Brazil signaled a new contract with business as part of
his election campaigns attempts to bridge the traditional gap between the Working
Partys historical constituencies and business, especially nancial capital (Zadek
2006a).
Civil society has and does transform how business is done, of that there is no
doubt. Just as black South Africans boycotted white businesses during apartheid, so
Chinese consumers vilied and abandoned French-owned shops, at least temporar-
ily, when French President Sarkozy met with the Dalai Lama in December 2008.9
Nestle, Nike, McDonalds, and Shell have joined a long list of global businesses that
have visibly yielded to the perceived threat of damage to their cherished brand val-
ues created by targeted campaigns by community groups, environmental and
human rights organizations, and labor unions. Such actions have clearly made a
difference. Greater corporate transparency, new codes of conduct, a mainstream
profession of social auditing that was considered exotic in the 1990s,10 and collab-
oratively developed standards on everything from sustainable forestry to Internet
privacy have shaped corporate practices and improved the lot of workers in global
supply chains, communities located around mining operations, indigenous groups
protecting their bio-homes, and endangered species from whales to tree frogs.11 It is
no longer possible to be a Western mainstream consumer brand and not commit to
labor and environmental standards down ones global supply chain, just as it would
be tough for any major Western nancial institution funding major infrastructure
projects not to sign up to the Equator Principles. In such senses, the basis on which
business is done has been transformed, not merely the behavior of specic busi-
nesses that have been targeted by public campaigns. Progress has clearly been made
through these new forms of collaborative governance (Slaughter 2005).
However, the disappointments have also been visible and troubling. An early
casualty was the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities, which was closed
down in 2004 after its main sponsors, the International Youth Foundation, Nike,
Gap, and the World Bank, accepted that the initiative had failed to gain traction
amongst the business, activist or development communities.12 Far more disturbing
was the effective collapse in 2006 of the much-vaunted Atlanta Agreement to secure
child-free stitching of leather footballs in Sialkot, Pakistan. This turn of events was
startling to many, if only because of the high-prole engagement of many interna-
tional players in brokering and implementing the deal, notably the International
Labor Organization (ILO), the Save the Children Fund, and the international labor
movement. More generally, these new forms of collaborative governance, at least in
their initial formulation, have succeeded in overcoming old impasses, but have only
rarely generated the level of transformational change required to address the chal-
lenges at stake. Even those that addressed the roles of governments have had limited
impact to date. This is obvious when it comes to corruption. Many anticorruption
initiatives have emerged under pressure from civil society, governments, and some-
times business itself, including the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative
(EITI), the World Economic Forum-sponsored Partnership Against Corruption
Initiative (PACI) and initiatives driven by single institutions such as Transparency
International and the Soros-backed Revenue Watch Institute.13 But corruption con-
tinues unabated. In Nigeria alone, an estimated $400 billion in oil revenues since
the 1960s has been stolen by politicians and civil servants.14
Hence, one can also conclude that civil society has failed to transform the basis
on which markets function, particularly the ways in which businesses prot from
externalizing costs onto the shoulders of others. After two decades of global action
on business accountability, the nancial sector was still able to impose historys
largest-ever exercise in taxation without representation during the crisis of 2009,
destroying trillions of dollars of wealth in the process, accumulating trillions more
in public debt, and putting tens of millions of people out of work. Despite the
weight of public anger that resulted, the U.S. government failed to impose meaning-
ful regulation on those who caused these problems, thus accelerating an underlying
shift of power from the North Atlantic to Asia and the Pacic. Similarly, a global
climate deal was not forged in Copenhagen in 2010, mostly as a result of the actions
of several thousand corporate lobbyists in Washington, D.C. who successfully bur-
ied what might have been the last opportunity for concerted action on climate man-
agement, in exchange for a few additional percentage points in share values and
short-term prots (Gore 2008). Corporate capture of the regulatory process, at least
in the United States, is self-evident, rendering virtually irrelevant any theory that
conceives of the state as an effective gamekeeper.
In each of these cases, civil society was actively engaged, but proved largely
irrelevant in practice. It is true that organizations such as Ceres that represent many
civil society organizations and progressive businesses in the United States have suc-
ceeded in persuading the Securities and Exchange Commission to mandate that
companies report publicly on material climate risks.15 But while this is a signicant
milestone in the evolution of corporate disclosure and the place of the environment
in risk management, the evidence from earlier, comparable developments in U.K.
company law is that such successes do not readily translate into substantive changes
in performance. The global climate negotiations themselves were certainly ampli-
ed, but arguably weakened by, the incoherence of civil society either as a serious
professional lobbying force or as a street-level platform for protest.
3. The Rise of New Actors

Realigning business responsibilities in society is never easy. Old ways are deeply
embedded in the fabric of markets and the psychology of those who create and lead
them. But such old ways are now themselves subject to a different challenge that
threatens to overturn the terms of the debate about civil society and market trans-
formation. That challenge is provided by a new cadre of emerging economic and
political powerhouses, notably (and perhaps in order of importance) China, India,
Brazil, Russia, and South Africa.
Existing global businesses complain that emerging economy businesses are
competing unfairly by ignoring social and environmental standards. Emerging
economy businesses and governments in turn accuse the international media of
bias, and argue that sustainability standards institutionalize an uneven playing eld
in favor of European and North American rms. Since such standards emerge in
most cases from the threat or actuality of destructive actions against business by
civil society organizations, the perception in the South is that they are in effect
policed by Northern NGOs on behalf of multinationals in the North. The good
news is that responsible leadership is far from being the preserve of the Northern
business community. The Brazilian body-care innovator, Natura, for example, the
Indian conglomerate Tata, and South Africas mining giant Anglo American are
among a growing number of iconic emerging economy companies that match or
exceed sustainability benchmarks set by the best practices of their Northern coun-
terparts. The Global 100, a prestigious ranking of the worlds one hundred most
sustainable, publicly listed companies, includes twelve emerging economy compa-
nies in its list for 2010, up from zero in 2005.16
Leveraging such exemplary practices to the mainstream of the market requires
generally accepted standards, the same challenge that drove campaigning NGOs to
engage in the development of the rst generation of sustainability standards in the
1990s. In this second round, the role of civil society in advancing such standards will
be key, but this time faced by the growing importance of business communities in
emerging economies. Civil society actors in Brazil and South Africa, for example,
have extensive experience in sustainability standards. Post-apartheid South Africa
has developed many voluntary social compacts between businesses, labor, civil soci-
ety, and government, mainly focused on black empowerment, but also dealing with
pervasive social and economic challenges such as HIV/AIDS. Similarly, Argentina
and Brazil have advanced a raft of voluntary sustainability standards such as the
Sustainable Soya Roundtable.17
Elsewhere the challenge for civil society is both greater and different. China, in
particular, will be hugely inuential for the next generation of business standards in
international markets (Brautigam 2010). As one senior executive of a North
American company based in Shanghai commented in 2010, China is developing
10,000 new standards with every intention of placing them at the heart of tomor-
rows global marketsthe question is not whether these standards will be inuen-
tial, but rather what will be in them.18 Yet unlike in Brazil and South Africa, Chinese
businesses and the Chinese government are both inexperienced inand in the
main resistant toengaging with civil society actors in the development of such
standards, let alone in their stewardship. There are exceptions: for example some
Chinese companies have signed up to existing civil society-business partnership
standards such as the Forest Stewardship Council and the Global Reporting
Initiative, and China is an active participant in the development of the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO)s social responsibility standard (SR 26000).
Yet as long as domestic experience of collaboration is weak, it is hard to imagine
engagement with civil society becoming core to how China does business
internationally.
Civil societys role in transforming markets is therefore further challenged by the
growing economic power of the South. A new generation of global businesses may
be less inclined to respond to civil regulation, especially if their domestic constitu-
ents (both governments and consumers) are less engaged or are actively disassoci-
ated with such issues. On the other hand, these profound geopolitical changes
empower civil society to engage with a growing middle class in emerging economies
in order to increase their interest and willingness to respond to the ethics of consum-
erism and employment choices. Recent public opinion polls of Chinese citizens
indicate the rise there of the ethical consumer. Some 98 percent of respondents to one
independent survey said they were likely to be more loyal and motivated as employees
if the company demonstrated a strong commitment to social responsibility, and
81 percent said they felt their choices as consumers could affect company behavior.19
4. Beyond the Business Case

The business case dimension of thinking has been the single most important driver
behind mainstreaming the practice of corporate social responsibility, and lies at the
heart of how civil society has sought to act directly in reshaping markets (Schmidheiny
1992). At its most straightforward, the business case describes a pragmatic need to
convince corporations that it is in their narrow institutional interests to improve
their social and environmental performance, even where relevant legislation is
absent or unenforced. It is this approach that has allowed unlikely alliances to
develop across a spectrum of players with diverse political views and interests, from
the advocates of a free-market approach to those with a more radical change agenda
(Klein 2002) However, much of the business case debate is misguided. The view that
there is a stable relationship between, say, adhering to human rights and protabil-
ity is foolish. The much-vaunted positive impact of good corporate governance on
business success is seriously overrated, or else poorly specied and understood
(Zadek 2006b). There are many factors that mediate the relationships between con-
text, drivers, enablers, and performance. Put simply, some businesses will work out
how to make money from, say, improved environmental performance, while others
will go bust in trying.
Civil societys business case approach has been predicated on the intensive
accountability of most businesses, especially publicly listed companies, to share-
holders with a predominantly nancial interest. In its modern form this approach
is associated with the failure of civil society in the 1970s and 1980s to successfully
advocate for either renewed economic nationalization or a shift in international
corporate governance towards more pluralistic accountability structures. In prac-
tice, there have been some gains in this latter respect, with extended trench warfare
focused on denitions of materiality, public disclosure, and the rights of minority
shareholders that has signicantly increased accountability to nonnancial share-
holders in some countries, despite the resilience of the underlying Anglo Saxon
model of duciary responsibility to nancial capital.
However, this incremental, tactical approach to squeezing the last ounce of
public good out of the Anglo Saxon model of corporate governance may come to be
seen as a side-skirmish, or at least as an appetizer to more fundamental shifts that
may accompany the growing importance of emerging economy businesses and gov-
ernments. Core to this shift is the extensive role of the state in the ownership of
economic assets in these countries. Chinas economy is dominated by state-owned
enterprises, and the bulk of their international investments, notably in natural

resources, are undertaken by publicly directed enterprises. Venezuela and other
countries that pursue what might be called the Chavez doctrine are also focused
heavily on state ownership, though here through renationalization framed by a
vibrant political populism. Similarly, Russia has experienced a major backlash
against poorly executed, post-Soviet privatization, with its political leaders driving
a grab-back under dubious legal circumstances, linked to a subsequent opaque-
ness in the effective control of state assets.
The energy sector, more generally, is swinging heavily towards public owner-
ship internationally, with the historically dominant North Atlantic global energy
players rapidly dropping down the rankings by revenue and the all-important mea-
sure of exploitation rights. Sovereign wealth funds, especially those of China and
the Middle East, are another major driver of the reemergence of state ownership of
economic assets. And of course there is the small matter of the renationalization by
Northern governments of failing nancial institutions, notably in the United States
and the United Kingdom. While positioned as temporary ownership and probably
accurately described as such, there is no doubt that the ideology of private owner-
ship for the public good has been severely damaged, opening the door to new civic
and political discourses and actions about market transformation.
State ownership in these diverse forms might be good or bad news for social
progress and sustainable development. In principle the state represents the public
interest and can and should behave with this principle in mind. Negatively, state-
capture by the business community, or cruder forms of political and bureaucratic
rent-seeking using state-owned assets, might compromise or completely undermine
the progressive role of the state as an economic actor. With both options in play, the
ways in which civil society can transform markets will need to be reinvented or at
least continuously evolved. Some forms of civil regulation might still be possible so
long as state-owned companies are pushed to observe basic nancial requirements.
But state protection might dilute the impact of these strategies, as was observed, for
example, in the Brazilian state-owned company Petrobrass refusal to respond to
civil society demands for health-related improvements to their retail energy prod-
ucts.20 Conversely, more classical forms of civic and political action might prove
more productive in shifting the behavior of state-owned enterprises and the mar-
kets they dominate, most obviously when such behavior can be turned into a major
politicaland eventually electoralissue.
5. Conclusion
In its traditional form, civil regulation achieves incremental changes in business
practices, but as it evolves in the changing context described above, it may be able to
drive a wider redesign of economic institutions and how they are governed. Looked
at through the rst lens, civil regulation describes a way for business to achieve a
comfortable accommodation to a negotiated set of norms. But through the second,
more speculative, lens, one can see the possibility of a relatively unplanned and
uncoordinated dismantling of distinct spheres of market and nonmarket action,
and indeed of the distinction between the public and private spheres themselves.
In terms of the three levels of action described at the outset of this chapter, civil
society has unquestionably had an impact at the tactical level on business behavior
and thereby on people and the environment. Thousands of companies have devel-
oped or adopted collaboratively developed codes of conduct, and these codes have
impacted millions of their suppliers and tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people
working in global supply chains, along with their families and communities.
Furthermore, some of these voluntary initiatives have been embraced in statutes cov-
ering corporate governance and reporting, stock exchange listing requirements, and
public procurement conditions.21 In the area of climate and carbon, such initiatives
have engaged from the outset with multilateral negotiations, and in the case of busi-
ness and human rights, the United Nations is seeking to establish an international
framework that would (to date, uniquely), span international law, national regula-
tion, collaboratively developed standards, and individual company behavior.22
Strategic impacts are more difcult to assess since they must compare actual
practice to alternative scenarios that did not come to pass. Large-scale opposition to
the fundamentals of free-market capitalism, perhaps signaled in venues such as the
World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle in 1999, have not prospered, at least
in Europe and North America. Smaller, radical skirmishes such as attempts to estab-
lish a pluralistic model of corporate accountability in a renewed company law in the
United Kingdom have oundered, and the larger trend towards economic renation-
alization has been reversed, or at least slowed down in some countries, by the global
recession of the late 2000s. In Brazil, for example, President Lula has protected pri-
vate ownership and promoted almost every aspect of liberalized markets, and in so
doing has weakened labor unions and other countervailing civil society groups.
Brazils home-grown, and now internationalized World Social Forum has sought to
represent the real economic alternative to neoliberalism, but in practice it has largely
shown itself, at least to date, as having a fragile intellectual, political, and economic
grounding and potential.
Ironically, the systemic future of market transformation may be driven by forces
largely antagonistic to civil society itself. Despite the Brazilian experience high-
lighted above, the new generation of political leaders that is emerging from the
South has strong views about the limited role of civil society and the heightened
role of the state in the context of markets designed to support national agendas and
political interests. The Copenhagen climate talks probably marked the last time that
such leaders allow themselves to be implicated in so unruly and unproductive an
enterprise that sought to integrate civil society into an intergovernmental process.
This experience will challenge the security of future open-source engagements by
civil society in addressing major societal issues, at least in their current forms. If
there is a serious systemic alternative to Anglo Saxon style economics, it is more
likely to involve greater state control over, and engagement in, capital markets, and
higher levels of state ownership and other less direct forms of control over eco-
nomic assets.
Yet these directions, in some ways exactly what civil society has been calling
for, are likely to come with a high price tag in terms of the erosion of human rights
by more authoritarian states. They do not necessarily signify that markets will
internalize social and environmental costs and benets, and they are unlikely to
empower civil society itself. Such a bittersweet scenario is not, of course, the only
available future. Strategic gains could be forthcoming if the more engaged, collab-
orative pathways that have secured tactical successes could be eased into use in
emerging nations, and these gains might eventually be converted into systemic
change. After all, such approaches can be more effective modes of control than
top-down models because of their exibility, dynamism, and distributed responsi-
bilities and investments, and this may make them attractive even to authoritarian
and semiauthoritarian governments These features lie at the core of criticisms
about their value as vehicles for radical change, and potentially constitute a source
of strength in edging new political and economic elites to engage in the pursuit of
improved livelihood strategies and the promotion of human rights. The dilemma
of this pathway is most obvious for the human rights community, but can also be
seen in other spheres (Sen 2000).
There are, then, a host of tactical, strategic, and systemic impacts and implica-
tions that emerge from the experience of civil society in seeking to shape business
behavior and markets more broadly. Simply put, civil society engagement has deliv-
ered real and positive results, but it has not yet achieved the scale or depth of change
required to lever a systemic impact, and even these potential systemic impacts may
have effects that are unintended and possibly undesirable from a civil society point
of view. Moreover, more of the same is unlikely to deliver better results, largely
because conditions in the global economic context are changing so much. Therefore,
civil society tactics and strategies must also evolve, rooted in a considered view of
how civil society groups will function in a world with new and/or more extreme
sustainability challenges, a clear need for business to be part of the solution and not
merely not part of the problem, and a dramatic change in the cast of powerful
political and economic interests that are seeking to shape tomorrows agenda and
how it might be advanced.
NOTES
1. Ironic in the sense that conventional economics holds that it is in these

markets that the consumer surplus is most effectively captured by rent-seeking
business, yet they have proved the most vulnerable to civil regulation, and have been
the location of most modern innovations in the role of civil society in shaping changes
in business behavior.
2. See the Financial Times, February 16, 2010. Available at http://blogs.ft.com/

energy-source/2010/02/16/conocos-leave-from-uscap-underlines-congress-failure-to-act/.
3. See http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/businesses/corporate_support/
business_partners.
4. See http://www.isealalliance.org/.
5. See http://www.voluntaryprinciples.org/.
6. See http://www.gavialliance.org/.
7. See www.iseal.org.
8. See Litovsky et al. (2008).
9. See http://www.dalailama.com/news/post/287-sarkozy-dees-china-with-dalai-
lama-talks.
10. See the early path-breaking cases in Zadek et al. (1997).
11. See the reviews in Rochlin, Zadek, and Forstater (2008) and Zadek (2008).
12. See Radovich (2006).
13. See http://www.unglobalcompact.org/aboutthegc/thetenprinciples/anti-
corruption.html.
14. See http://www.nancialpost.com/news-sectors/energy/story.html?id=1856051.
15. See the Securities and Exchange Commission 17 CFR parts 211, 231, and 241
[Release Nos. 33-9106; 34-61469; FR-82] Commission Guidance Regarding Disclosure
Related to Climate Change (www.sec.gov/rules/interp/2010/33-9106.pdf ).
16. See http://www.global100.org/.
17. See http://www.responsiblesoy.org/.
18. From a personal discussion with the author.
19. See http://www.nationalgeographic.com/greendex/.
20. See http://www.ethos.org.br/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3715&Lang=pt-
BR&Alias=Ethos&itemEvenID=5069.
21. See http://www.isealalliance.org/.
22. See http://www.business-humanrights.org/SpecialRepPortal/Home.
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and the Social Contract. Working Paper 17. Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative,
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part vii
SUPPORTING CIVIL
SOCIETY
chapter 35
CIVIL SOCIETY AND

INSTITUTIONAL
PHILANTHROPY
w illiam a. schambra
krista l. shaffer
Institutional philanthropyby which we mean the universe of substantial, pro-

fessionally staffed private foundationsis an outgrowth of civil society, yet it
behaves as if it were somehow ashamed of its civil society origins. Indeed, if Americas
largest foundations were to have their way, they would dramatically alter the essen-
tial attributes of Americas civic life. Given that American philanthropy is inuential
as a model in other countries too, these developments may also affect the health of
civil society elsewhere. How did we arrive at this state of affairs and what can be
done to change it? These are the questions we explore in this chapter.
1. Alexis de Tocqueville, Decentralized

Administration, and Local Voluntary
Associations
Any discussion of American civil society must begin with Alexis de Tocquevilles
Democracy in America, published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840. As many histori-
ans have noted, Tocquevilles description of the reality of American civic life at the
444 supporting civil society
beginning of the nineteenth century is not altogether historically accurate. To take

Tocqueville seriously today, many scholars maintain, is a mistakean exercise in
nostalgia for a cozy, tightly knit community life that in fact only existed in
Tocquevilles imagination, and that at any rate certainly does not exist today. But
this is fundamentally to misunderstand the point of his account. It was never
intended to be a Baedekers guide to America, but rather a work of political philoso-
phy. He meant to describe a radical and, to many, disturbing new political and social
phenomenon, the spread of democracy around the world. America happened to be
the nation where democracy had achieved its most advanced development. More to
the point, and in spite of dire prognostications, America had managed to establish
a temperate, self-controlled, orderly, liberal democracy. Tocqueville wished to distill
from this experience the principles and practices that had brought out the best in
democracy and suppressed the worst, so that other nations might similarly benet.
His account of American life, with what may seem to be its many omissions and
exaggerations, is drawn with that pedagogical purpose in mind.
For Tocqueville, as for the American founding fathers, modern liberal democ-
racy introduced the element of individualism into every aspect of national life.
While this had produced a hitherto unimaginable degree of human freedom and
prosperity, it also posed certain dangers. Individualism could turn humans into
narrow-minded, petty, materialistic atoms of self-interest. It disposed each citizen
to isolate himself from the mass of his fellow. In individualistic democracies, each
man is thrown back on himself alone, and there is the danger that he may be shut
up in the solitude of his own heart ([1835] 2000, 4824). If this was the prime dan-
ger posed by modern democracy, though, Americans had happily discovered a way
to counteract it, according to Tocqueville. In this land, he found, individualism was
moderated or attenuated by a series of devices, foremost among them administra-
tive decentralization and voluntary association, that had in common a single prin-
ciple: they compelled the individual to assume responsibility for a small portion of
the public businessbusiness that affects her immediate self-interest and is there-
fore important to her, but that nonetheless forces her to interact with others and
thus gradually to see beyond her immediate self-interest to a larger common good.
Administrative decentralization is one of the most important tools for forging a
responsible citizenry. Always a powerful tradition in America, local government had
its roots in the New England town meeting. Even after the Union had been formed,
though, Tocqueville notes, the lawgivers of America did not suppose that a general
representation of the whole nation would sufce to ward off the dangerous tenden-
cies of individualism; they thought it also right to give each part of the land its own
political life so that there would be an innite number of occasions for the citizens to
act together and so that every day they should feel that they depended on one
another ([1835] 2000, 4867). Citizenly obligation can grow, however, only when it
is immediately, tangibly clear to the individual that public matters affect his or her
personal well-being: It is difcult to force a man out of himself and get him to take
an interest in the affairs of the whole state. In the regime of self-interest, public
involvement and therefore social obligations are achieved only when the citizen
civil society and institutional philanthropy 445
experiences, in a concrete way, the connection between private interest and public
affairs. Once the individual enters the public realm to deal with the question of the
road past his property, he is forced to act together with others, and as soon as com-
mon affairs are treated in common, each man notices that he is not as independent
of his fellows as he used to suppose and that to get their help he must often offer his
aid to them ([1835] 2000, 486). By dint of working for the good of his fellow citizens,
he in the end acquires a habit and taste for serving them ([1835] 2000, 488).
The voluntary associations of civil society operate in much the same way as
administrative decentralization to produce a sense of citizenly obligation in the dem-
ocratic individual. As the familiar Tocqueville quote puts it, Americans of all ages, all
stations of life, and all types of dispositions are forever forming associations ([1835]
2000, 489). Typically, associations are formed to meet immediate, concrete problems
that have a tangible bearing on individual self-interest: If some obstacle blocks the
public road halting the circulation of trafc, the neighbors at once form a delibera-
tive body; this improvised assembly produces an executive authority which remedies
the trouble ([1835] 2000, 1801). As citizens associate, pursuing in common the
objects of common desire, they have become accustomed to considering the inter-
ests of others, as well as their own self-interest; feelings and ideas are renewed, the
heart enlarged, and the understanding developed . . . by the reciprocal action of men
upon one another in associations ([1835] 2000, 491).
Decentralization and voluntary association characterized American political
and social life for much of the rst century of independence. The boundaries
between public and private were by no means as clearly drawn as they were later,
with much of the publics workhealing the sick, educating the young, caring for
the poorbeing done voluntarily or contractually by private groups. Because
everyday political life was very much left to everyday citizens, the results were often
inelegant, amateurish, duplicative, wasteful, and rooted in what may have seemed
the incredibly diverse, peculiar, and irrational moral and spiritual beliefs of Americas
local communities. But this vast range of activity drew in and engaged productively
and peacefully the full range of Americansfrom the wealthy few, who formed
philanthropies and private organizations to guard their interests once they had been
excluded from public ofce by various populist movements, to women, poor farm-
ers and laborers, despised religious sects, free blacks, and immigrants, who formed
their own charities, burial societies, insurance companies, and cooperatives to look
after their own interests (Hall 1982; Hall 1992, 140206; McCarthy 2003).
2. The Rise of Scientific Philanthropy

While this immense outpouring of democratic energies in civil society would have
been gratifying to Tocqueville, it was entirely inadequate to meet the needs of the
nation as it approached the twentieth century, according to the American progressive
movement. In its view, powerful new economic and technological developments

the development of factory production, mass markets, railroads, telegraph, and
telephonehad shattered the old boundaries of what historian Robert Wiebe aptly
called our island communities, and rendered obsolete Tocquevilles decentralized,
voluntary approach to public problems (1966, xiii, 4).
The everyday common sense of the citizen that had sufced to understand pub-
lic affairs on the local, community scale could not grasp the new technological
interrelatedness that characterized public life. Citizens could only see the super-
cial, immediate manifestations of social problemstheir symptomsand could
not understand their underlying root causes. That understanding depended on the
new natural sciences that were revolutionizing medicine, public health, and agricul-
ture, plus the new sciences of society that were explicitly based on their example.
The professional social scientistthe economist, sociologist, psychologist, and
political scientistnow had a critical role to play because, as Thomas Haskell points
out, it was largely through his explanatory prowess that men might learn to under-
stand their complex situation, and largely through his predictive ability that men
might cooperatively control societys future (1977, 14). In Herbert Crolys formula-
tion, in the more complex, the more uid, and the more highly energized, equipped,
and differentiated society of today, the cohesive element would be the complet-
est social record, which could be only assembled by social science experts using
social knowledge in the interest of valid social purposes (1915, 370).
Tocquevilles notion that local, voluntary action was essential to overcoming
democratic individualism came to be seen as equally antiquated. Professionals
believed that ordinary citizens were capable of only base self-interest, whereas those
trained in the abstract, objective techniques of science, by virtue of their profes-
sional training and commitment to service, were alone able to transcend petty con-
siderations and grasp the larger public interest, and lead the less enlightened closer
to it. These new leaders would summon citizens out of the constraints of local com-
munities and into a much grander and more compelling form of unity or oneness,
now at the level of the nation as a whole. The great, national community would
evoke a self-denying devotion to the national idea from the American people, a
far-ung community of millions in which citizens nonetheless would be linked
tightly by bonds of compassion, fellow-feeling, and neighborliness. In Crolys words,
there would be a subordination of the individual to the demand of a dominant and
constructive national purpose. A citizen would begin to think rst of the State and
next of himself, and individuals of all kinds will nd their most edifying individ-
ual opportunities in serving their country. Indeed, America would come to be
bound together by a religion of human brotherhood, which can be realized only
through the loving-kindness which individuals feel . . . particularly toward their fel-
low-countrymen (1909, 23, 406, 418, 453). As if taking aim squarely at Tocquevilles
understanding of civil society, the sociologist Edward Alsworth Ross summed it up
this way: America needed to transcend its fragmentation into thousands of local
groups sewed up in separatist dogmas and dead to most of the feelings which thrill
the rest of society. This would be accomplished by the widest possible diffusion of
secular knowledge among the many, which narrows the power of the fanatic or
the false prophet to gain a following. Meanwhile, university training for the elite
would [rear] up a type of leader who will draw men together with unifying
thoughts, instead of dividing them, as does the sect-founder (1921, 422).
The rst large American foundationsCarnegie, Rockefeller, and Russell
Sageunderstood themselves to be instruments of this American progressive proj-
ect. They were established, as had been the business corporations that produced
their corpus, by modern businessmen committed to notions of rationality, organi-
zation, and efciency, who had become accustomed to subsuming smaller, less ef-
cient units into nation-spanning enterprises with grand ambitions. So their new
foundations were national in scope, established in perpetuity, and dedicated to the
general welfare of mankind. The founders were also imbued with the ethic of mod-
ern science. A more scientic and businesslike approach to problems, they
believed, was to attack the root causes of social dysfunction directly, which could
be determined by the scientic investigation of social and physical well-being
(Karl and Katz 1981, 236270). Indeed, the essential self-understanding of the new
foundations was that they would be, in John D. Rockefellers description, constantly
in search for nalitiesa search for cause, an attempt to cure the evils at their
source (Rockefeller 1913, 177). By contrast, Tocquevilles local communities could
only understand and modestly ameliorate the symptoms of underlying problems.
The new foundations aimed their resources overwhelmingly at the generation
and teaching of the new sciences of physical and social root causes, especially in
modern research universities and institutes of public policy research. At the same
time, they funded the rationalization, standardization, and modernization of the
elite professions based on the new sciences, and the establishment of institutions
that would insure their inuence on public policy. Russell Sage, for example, was
instrumental in converting social work from a local, community-based charitable
activity into a genuine profession, reecting foundation ofcial Robert de Forests
conviction that, while social work must care for needy families, the most effective
work is to strike at those conditions which made these families needy, and so far as
possible, to remove them (Hammack and Wheeler 1994, 11). Mary Van Kleeck,
director of the foundations Department of Industrial Studies, believed that the
world can be controlled, if we release intellect (Sealander 1997, 39).
Much of the Carnegie Corporations work was similarly designed to establish
uniform national standards in education, to insure that only the best were drawn
into the new trans-local elites. Although the explicit function of the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was to fund a pension fund for pri-
vate college teachers, in fact, as rst president Henry S. Pritchett noted, its scope as
a centralizing and standardizing inuence in American education promises to out-
weigh in importance the primary purpose of the fund (Lagemann 1983). Carnegie
was behind the early efforts to standardize and rationalize the measurement of aca-
demic progress in high school, and to develop rigorous tests for admission to col-
lege and graduate school. Through a series of surveys of various professions, the
most famous of which is the Flexner Report on medical education, the Carnegie
philanthropies sought to centralize and standardize the bodies of thought and prac-
tice essential to modern organization.
The Rockefeller Foundation committed itself not only to medical and public
health measures like the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and the
Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease (Ettling
1981), but also to a wide range of activities to develop and promote the social sci-
ences in research universities and think tanks. Rockefellers newly funded University
of Chicago boasted a strong emphasis on the social sciences, linked directly to prac-
tical application in public policy by a Rockefeller-funded building near the campus
that, at one time, housed twenty-two of the leading agencies of public policy and
public administration. Rockefeller was also the primary funder of the agencies that
would coordinate and centralize research in public policy like the Social Science
Research Council and the National Bureau of Economic Research. As a Rockefeller
mission statement put in the 1920s, its funding was designed to increase the body
of knowledge which in the hands of competent social technicians may be expected
in time to result in substantial social control (Fisher 1983, 208).
The work of the large foundations was designed not only to withdraw author-
ity from citizens who had only imperfect and constrained understandings of social
causality and put it in the hands of experts who could penetrate to root causes in
their analysis. It was also designed to erect professional licensing and accreditation
barriers so that the new elites could be cleansed of any taint of the old irrational,
parochial views nourished within small, isolated communities. The reform of
medical education through the Flexner Report, for example, meant the closing of
scores of medical schools that, although decient by scientic standards, drew the
poor and marginalized into medical practice. The number of medical schools serv-
ing African Americans, for instance, fell from eight to two after the report. But
Flexner had little patience for the arguments of those who warned that closing
marginal schools would close medicine to poor boys and members of minorities,
and opposed offering fellowships on the basis of nancial need (Sealander 232).
Carnegies work in professionalizing the legal profession was in part a response to
complaints like that voiced by Harlan Fiske Stone, dean of Columbia Law School,
that the deterioration of the bar has been a result of the lowering of the average
by the inux to the bar of greater numbers of the unt, especially the foreign born
(Lagemann 77).
Lagemanns comment about Carnegies critics could apply to all the major
national foundations: critics saw a peril because they believed the foundations
were supporting nationalism at the expense of localism (provincialism), univer-
salism in standards at the expense of pluralism, expert participation in standard
making at the expense of lay participation, and private authority in policy making
at the expense of public authority (1983, 180). The critics had a powerful argument.
In fact, the new foundations were dedicated to the proposition that signicant
power should be wielded by professionally trained national elites rather than the
untrained, amateurish local communities so important to Tocquevilles account of
American democracy, or by those contaminated by their inuences.
3. Foundations and Government:

Collaboration and Oversight
Throughout the twentieth century, the national elites who had been launched from
the universities and think tanks funded by foundations increasingly wielded their
power from the commanding heights of the federal government itself, as it expanded
its reach over signicant aspects of American life through Franklin Roosevelts New
Deal and Lyndon Johnsons Great Society. This meant that, by comparison, even the
largest foundations played ever smaller roles in public policy, but since this trend
towards centralized national administration had been propelled by its own expert
professionals, philanthropy was content simply to seek a role for itself in the inter-
stices of federal activity. It became the goal of the most sophisticated foundations to
fund demonstration projects and trial interventions that, if proven successful, could
then be passed on for scaling up through more substantial federal funding.
The most successful example of such demonstration and scaling up came
with the Ford Foundations Grey Areas project in the early 1960s, which became
the basis of Johnsons community action notion in his War on Poverty. Interestingly,
this was also the most signicant instance of a major foundations irting with the
notion that citizens might be able to make a valuable contribution to solving pub-
lic problems after all. Embedded in these approaches was the idea that the poor
should have some say in the manner of delivery of services to their neighbor-
hoods. But the orientation was still emphatically towards delivery of services by
professionals, the coordination and effectiveness of which might be enhanced by
community input. According to Francis Fox Piven, the aim was a reorganization
of services to procure rational, planned collaboration (1967, 95). The far more
radical notion that citizens in low-income areas might be consulted about what
they considered problems, and that outside agencies should shape their assistance
around solutions dened and organized by the community, was never considered.
Writing about Philadelphias experiment in community action drawn up by aca-
demics at Temple University, Charles Silberman pointed out that the notion that
citizens conceivably might want to speak for themselves obviously never occurred
to the academicians, government ofcials, and civic leaders who drew up the
documents (1964, 353).
Given that the Ford Foundations venture into community action never departed
very far from the model of professional service delivery, it is ironic that it managed
to discredit the notion of active civic engagement in public policy for some time to
come, only reafrming the need for distance between the planning experts and
planned-for citizens (Moynihan 1969). It also drew unwanted attention from
Congress, which led to a tightening up of standards and procedures in philanthro-
py.1 The result of both this irtation with community empowerment and pressure
from Congress was that foundations focused more and more on increasing the pro-
fessionalism of their own internal management and grant-making processes, with
less and less patience for the amateurish and slipshod projects brought to them by
neighborhood nonprots.2
4. The New Wave of Philanthropy

and Its Impact
In spite of this history, wave upon wave of new philanthropists have arrived on the
scene and, after cursory examination, announced, as if for the very rst time, that
philanthropy lacks rigor and expertise, and desperately needs a major infusion of
rationalization, professionalization, and outcomes orientation (Edwards 2010).
Many recent donors have entrepreneurial backgrounds in new technologies, and
are condent that their business experience has given them peculiar and unprece-
dented insight about the need to solve problems, rather than simply treat their
symptoms. They are either oblivious to, or unimpressed by, a full century of boast-
ful discourse in philanthropy that surrounds its embrace of scientic solutions over
the halting, disjointed, and supercial fumblings of charity.
In a typical pronouncement, Charles Bronfman and Jeffrey Solomon (2010, 23)
write that until now, philanthropy was about power, expectation, inuence and yes,
ego. It was rarely about impact. But now, apparently for the rst time, donors have
sought to make a difference. . . . they are ready to make use of the sophisticated manage-
ment instruments they have developed in their business life to achieve greater perfor-
mance in this new, more challenging arena. . . . they give purposefully, think strategically,
and rely on measurements and regular monitoring. Paul Brest, president of the Hewlett
Foundation, and Hal Harvey similarly argue that rigorous thinking and strategizing is
what has been missing from philanthropy. Their 2008 volume, Money Well Spent,
argues that the central task of a truly strategic philanthropy is designing and then
implementing a plan commensurate with the resources committed to it. Then, in lan-
guage that could have come straight out of a Rockefeller Foundation annual report in
the 1920s, they add that this, in turn, requires an empirical, evidence-based under-
standing of the external world in which the plan will operate. At the heart of effective
philanthropy, they suggest, is constructing a theory of change . . . an analysis of the
causal chain that links your philanthropic interventions to the goals you want to
achieve. Greater attention to scientic and logical rigor by foundation strategists will
nally convert mere charity to truly effective philanthropy (2008, 7, 4748).
As institutional philanthropy turns ever more to the need to shake up its own
internal strategizing, planning, and measuring, the inevitable result is even further
denigration of whatever thoughts and plans might occur to citizens who are orga-
nized in grassroots nonprots. Indeed, many foundations proceed as if little or noth-
ing of worth had been accomplished prior to the introduction of the newest techniques
of planning and management. As David Hunter notes in The End of Charity, there is
virtually no credible evidence that most nonprot organizations actually produce any
social value. Furthermore, we cannot rely on direct service nonprots to x them-

selves without a serious push. Only the nonprot sectors funders can take the lead
in building a strong, effective and efcient nonprot sector (2009, 72). Many donors
are clearly eager to become more directive about how nonprots should behave.
Nonprots should be run just a crisply as for-prots, insist Bronfman and Solomon.
Meetings should start on time and end on time too. They should not be social gath-
erings that drag on endlessly for no purpose. A nonprot isnt a church either. It
should not fall for a charismatic leader who gives the operation a charged-up, reli-
gious feelingand loses sight of what it is actually created to do (2010, 18).
Whether from philanthropys initial enthrallment with social science or its
more recent infatuation with business management, the long-term trend in the eld
has been to create ever more distance between the everyday citizen in his or her local
nonprot and the centralized, technocratic professional management of the mod-
ern foundation. Although organized within, and directing its funding towards, the
institutions of civil society, philanthropy has become complicit in the disparage-
ment of what Tocqueville regarded as civil societys primary task: the inculcation of
democratic engagement in problem-solving and the development of community-
mindedness. Nonprots meetings often are social gatherings that drag on end-
lessly (Bronfman and Solomon 2010, 18) for precisely that critical democratic
purpose. As John McKnight notes about the larger problem of professionalization
in modern society, When the capacity to dene the problem becomes a profes-
sional prerogative, citizens no longer exist. The prerogative removes the citizen as
problem-dener, much less problem-solver. It translates political functions into
technical and technological problems (1995, 48).
5. Conclusion: What Should

Foundations Do?
Were institutional philanthropy interested in a unique and immensely powerful role
in American public life, it would stop denigrating civil society associations and attend
to the alarming decits in democratic engagement that it had a hand in producing
(Gibson 2006). It would turn its attention to nourishing and supporting the
Tocquevillian institutions of self-government. Building squarely on Tocquevilles
insights, foundations might redirect funding to programs that originate with the
views of citizens at the grassroots, with their understanding of the problems they
face, and how they wish to go about addressing them.3 Solutions tailored by citizens
who actually live with problems are more likely to be effective for their own neigh-
borhoods. Community ownership insures that these approaches will be supported
and sustained over the long haul, rather than provoking the sort of resistance that
often greets programs designed by remote experts and parachuted into neighborhoods,
as had happened with the Great Societys community action program. Perhaps most
important, the process of formulating and proposing solutions to their own prob-
lems cultivates in citizens the skills essential to democratic self-governancethe
ability at rst to endure, but nally perhaps to relish, the messy, gritty process of
deliberating, arguing, and compromising demanded by American democracys con-
viction that all citizens are to be treated with dignity and respect.
Tocquevillian or civic renewal philanthropy would reach out quietly but actively
into the communities it wishes to assist, harvesting street wisdom about which
groups genuinely capture a communitys self-understanding of its problems
(Somerville 2008). Such groups will more than likely have duct tape on their indus-
trial carpeting and water stains on their ceilings. They will not be able to draft clever,
eye-catching fundraising brochures or grant proposals. They will not have sophisti-
cated accounting systems, or be able to lay out a schedule of measurable outcomes.
They will not speak the language of the social sciences, but more often than not, the
language of sin and spiritual redemption. They will not be staffed by well-paid cre-
dentialed experts, but rather by volunteers whose chief credential is that they them-
selves have managed to overcome the problem they are now helping others to
confront. No matter what is stated in the groups formal charter, it will minister to
whatever needs present themselves at the door, even if it means being accused of
inefciency or mission drift. In this spirit, each person is treated not as an inade-
quately self-aware bundle of pathologies, but rather as a unique individual, a citizen
possessed of a soul demanding a respectful, humane response to the entire person.
This approach turns completely on its head the still-entrenched orthodoxy of
institutional philanthropy. Indeed, it looks suspiciously like charitythe anti-
quated, discredited approach which nonetheless honored and ministered person-
ally to the each individual. Charity does indeed deal with mere symptoms because
they are what people themselves consider important, rather than with root causes
visible only to experts who can see through the client. Because civic renewal phi-
lanthropy tackles social problems individual by individual, neighborhood by neigh-
borhood, and because it relies on individuals and neighborhoods to dene and
solve their own problems, this approach calls for a degree of humility and surrender
of control that will not appeal to professional experts.
Isnt this too humble a task for philanthropy? Isnt it an abject retreat from the
promise of social science to get at the root causes of social problems once and for
all? Do we have to revert to mere charity? Consider, though, that after almost a cen-
tury of spending billions of dollars in root-cause philanthropy, it is difcult to name
a single social problem whose roots philanthropy has reached. Meanwhile, everyday
citizens have continued to form countless community associations to tackle their
own problems in their own ways, usually in the form of neighbors caring for and
nurturing each other directly and personally (McKnight 1995). One could look at
this and see mere charity, or one could see vigorous civic engagement in self-gover-
nance. Tocqueville clearly saw the latter. On this modest, practical, local civic activ-
ity, he placed his highest hopes for the survival of the American experiment in
democracy. Foundations supporting such activity need hardly be ashamed of help-
ing to rebuild popular self-governance at the grassroots.
NOTES
1. The specic activities of the Ford Foundation that aroused Congressional ire are
discussed briey in Fleishman (2009, 32526) and Reeves (1970, 2022), and more
thoroughly in Smith and Chiechi (1974, 43).
2. For more on the professionalization of foundations after the Tax Reform Act of
1969, see Frumkin (2006, 10024), as well as the brief overviews in Hammack (2006, 8082)
and Abramson and McCarthy (2002, 34344).
3. Examples of effective grassroots groups and the people who help fund them can be
found in Woodson (1998) and Elliott (2004). For further, more policy-oriented background
on supporting Tocquevillian institutions of self-government, as well as some examples, see
Goldsmith (2002).
REFERENCES
Abramson, A., and R. McCarthy. 2002. Infrastructure Organizations, in L. Salamon (ed.)

The State of Nonprot America. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Brest, P., and H. Harvey. 2008. Money Well Spent: A Strategic Plan for Smart Philanthropy.
New York: Bloomberg Press.
Bronfman, C., and J. Solomon. 2010. The Art of Giving: Where the Soul Meets a Business
Plan. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Croly, H. D. 1909. The Promise of American Life. New York: MacMillan.
. 1915. Progressive Democracy. New York: MacMillan.
Berrett-Koehler.
Elliott, B. J. 2004. Street Saints: Renewing Americas Cities. Philadelphia: Templeton
Foundation Press.
Ettling, J. 1981. The Germ of Laziness: Rockefeller Philanthropy and Public Health in the New
South. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Fisher, D. 1983. The Role of Philanthropic Foundations in the Reproduction and
Production of Hegemony: Rockefeller Foundations and the Social Sciences. Sociology
vol. 17 no. 2: 20633.
Fleishman, J. L. 2009. The Foundation: A Great American Secret: How Private Wealth is
Changing the World. New York: Public Affairs.
Frumkin, P. 2006. Strategic Giving: The Art and Science of Philanthropy. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Gibson, C. 2006. Citizens at the Center: A New Approach to Civic Engagement.
Washington, D.C.: The Case Foundation. Available at http://www.casefoundation.org/
sites/default/les/citizens-at-the-center.pdf (accessed February 18, 2010).
Goldsmith, S. 2002. Putting Faith in Neighborhoods: Making Cities Work through Grassroots
Citizenship. Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute.
Hall, P. D. 1982. The Organization of American Culture, 17001900: Private Institutions,
Elites, and the Origins of American Nationality. New York: New York University Press.
. 1992. Inventing the Nonprot Sector and Other Essays on Philanthropy, Voluntarism,
and Nonprot Organizations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
. 2006. American Debates on the Legitimacy of Foundations, in K. Prewitt, M.

Dogan, S. Heydemann, and S. Toepler (eds.) The Legitimacy of Philanthropic
Foundations: United States and European Perspectives. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation.
Hammack, D. C., and S. Wheeler. 1994. Social Science in the Making: Essays on the Russell
Sage Foundation, 19071972. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Haskell, T. L. 1977. The Emergence of Professional Social Science: The American Society
Science Association and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Authority. Urbana: University
of Illinois Press.
Hunter, D. 2009. The End of Charity: How to Fix the Nonprot Sector Through Effective
Social Investing. Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal vol. 1(1): 7277.
Karl, B. D., and S. N. Katz. 1981. The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the
Public Sphere 18901930. Minerva, vol. 19(2): 23670.
Lagemann, E. C. 1983. Private Power for the Public Good: A History of the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University
Press.
McCarthy, K. D. 2003. American Creed: Philanthropy and the Rise of Civil Society 17001865.
McKnight, J. 1995. Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits. New York: Basic Books.
Moynihan, D. P. 1969. Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding: Community Action in the War
on Poverty. New York: The Free Press.
Piven, F. F. 1967. The Demonstration Project: A Federal Strategy for Local Change, in
G. A. Brager and F. P. Purcell (eds.) Communication Action Against Poverty: Readings
from the Mobilization Experience. New Haven, Conn.: College & University Press.
Reeves, T. C. 1970. Introduction, in T. C. Reeves (ed.) Foundations Under Fire. Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press.
Rockefeller, J. D. 1913. Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday.
Ross, E. A. 1921. The Principles of Sociology. New York: The Century Co.
Sealander, J. 1997. Private Wealth & Public Life: Foundation Philanthropy and the Reshaping
of American Social Policy from the Progressive Era to the New Deal. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Silberman, C. E. 1964. Crisis in Black and White. New York: Random House.
Smith, W. H., and C. P. Chiechi, 1974. Private Foundations: Before and After the Tax Reform
Act of 1969. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.
Somerville, B., with F. Setterberg. 2008. Grassroots Philanthropy: Field Notes of a Maverick
Grantmaker. Berkeley: Heyday Books.
de Toqueville, A. [1835, 1840] 2000. Democracy in America. Trans. H. C. Manseld and D.
Winthrop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wiebe, R. H. 1966. The Search for Order 18771920. New York: Hill and Wang.
Woodson, R. L., Sr. 1998. The Triumphs of Joseph: How Todays Community Healers are
Reviving Our Streets and Neighborhoods. New York: The Free Press.
chapter 36
CIVIL SOCIETY
AND GRASSROOTS
PHILANTHROPY
g. albert ruesga
The term grassroots is a powerful metaphor for many funders and activists in the
eld of philanthropy, and is often counterposed with ideas of top-down or elite-
driven funding. The grassroots suggest the ground beneath our feet, something that
is both anchored and anchoring. They are close to the earth, elemental, and connote
a direct relationship with the sources of being and truth. They are rugged and hardy,
and able over time to cover the wounds inicted on the planet. The grassroots are
also, ironically, something frequently trampled over and taken for granted, the uni-
verse of average or ordinary citizens and, in the parlance of philanthropy, members
of communities in need. As such, the grassroots have been both the subject and
the object of a signicant amount of individual and institutional giving to strengthen
civil society in all of its guises.
Not surprisingly then, the term grassroots draws us immediately into a con-
tested space, occupied by publics who have a vague but serviceable idea of what the
term might mean and by individuals whose livelihoods depend on its precise inter-
pretation, for funding streams may wend their way to those whose work embraces
one denition of the term but not another. Some argue, for example, that a nongov-
ernmental organization (NGO) ceases to be grassroots when it is no longer led by
those directly affected by the problems the organization seeks to address. Others
claim that when an association of ordinary citizens becomes formally chartered or
incorporated, it leaves the realm of the grassroots and enters a world of profession-
alized activity that is inevitably more aligned with the purposes of societys elites.
While most people are not so demanding about the meaning of the term, a certain
laxness about its use has led to an ination of its meaning over time. As one com-
mentator expressed it, the rhetoric of resident engagement and community is now
so banal as to render much of it meaningless (Traynor 2002, 6). This has been the
fate of many terms in currency in the world of philanthropy, including social jus-
tice and social entrepreneur, not to mention the technical lexicon of formal eval-
uation methods and metrics that is much in vogue.1 Therefore, some precision is
important.
Many controversies surround the theory and practice of grassroots philan-
thropy. While some doubt that grassroots philanthropy can ever lead to signicant
social change, others argue that it is the only kind of philanthropy that ever has.
Other debates relate to the engagement of ordinary citizens in efforts for social
change. To what degree should these efforts be controlled by those who themselves
are affected by problems rather than by trained professionals? Since poor people
have direct knowledge of what it is like to live in poverty, can and should they be the
prime movers in shaping programs that aim to change their condition? This chapter
reviews these questions, suggests some ways to work through the thorny issues they
raise, and advocates a critical stance on the assumptions that often surround the
notion of grassroots giving.
1. What Is Grassroots Philanthropy

and Why Is It Important?
What makes a special kind of philanthropy necessary or desirable? The motivations
for practicing grassroots philanthropy are many. Some see support for the grass-
roots as a good thing in and of itself. Helping to build a sense of community, enhanc-
ing a communitys ability to address local concerns, and promoting a high level of
civic engagement by ordinary peoplethese are all valuable, their proponents
argue, whether or not they lead to specic outcomes such as higher birth weights or
longer life expectancies. In most cases, however, funders see grassroots philanthropy
as an essential, or at least an important, element of some broader theory of
changeas a means to achieve specic social, economic, and political ends estab-
lished, ultimately, by the donor.
If one thinks of philanthropy as the giving of time and money to activities of
public benet, three major strands of grassroots philanthropy can be identied.
First, there is top-down support for activities that benet the grassroots in some
way. In this category of grassroots philanthropy, those directly affected by a problem
are not involved in making funding decisions that are aimed at its resolution. A
funder might, for example, make a well-intentioned effort to end homelessness
without consulting the homeless in any way. This is philanthropy to the grassroots.
A second approach includes support for activities that benet the grassroots but
civil society and grassroots philanthropy 457
also involve members of affected populations in grant-making decisions and/or the

design, implementation, and evaluation of grant-making programsat least to
some degree. Some funders see meaningful citizen participation as the key to effec-
tive grant making, while others retain a greater measure of control, arguing that a
division of labor between trained professionals and community residents yields
better outcomes. This is philanthropy with the grassroots.
Third, grassroots philanthropy can mean the giving of time, money, and other
forms of support by ordinary citizens to one another and to the collective activities
of their own communities, dened either by geography, identity, or interest. The
support of these givers is important to the health of many NGOs and other civil
society groups and has played a critical role in many social change efforts. This is
philanthropy by and from the grassroots. In many instances, funders are happy to
provide support to the grassroots but not so eager to share control over decisions
with affected communities or to cede ground to efforts supported by philanthropy
from the grassroots. This ambivalence towards authentic citizen participation is
characteristic of foundations and has many sources that are explored in brief
below. It constitutes a central tension in debates about civil society and
philanthropy.
Grassroots philanthropy is sometimes conated with support for community-
based organizationsa kind of NGO characterized by its rootedness in, and service
to, a particular neighborhood or geographically dened community. While it is true
that many community-based organizations are likely to have an accurate view of
the concerns and aspirations of local residents, they are not necessarily resident-led
or resident-staffed, and their goals and methods might put them at odds with the
people they aim to serve. Grassroots Grantmakers, a U.S.-based association of
funders, denes grassroots philanthropy as a place-based grant-making approach
that focuses on strengthening and connecting resident-led organizations and their
leaders in urban neighborhoods and rural communities. Typically, it is aimed at
strengthening the capacity of people who come together to improve their commu-
nities through projects and activities that they initiate and manage.2 Grant makers
who use this approach employ a number of methods to address local priorities,
including small grants programs for organizations that might not otherwise qualify
for funding, the sponsoring of community gatherings, the use of leadership pro-
grams to help develop and strengthen local leaders, and the provision of technical
assistance and training to community-based groups.
It is worth noting that grassroots philanthropy has sometimes been character-
ized not by the nature of the recipients or the kind of work supported, but by the
style of giving. Bill Somerville (2008, 25), for example, urges philanthropists to leave
their ofces so they can identify outstanding people doing important work more
effectively. In this view, grassroots philanthropists should minimize bureaucracy
and get out into the eld in order to interact more freely with those who are making
change happen on the ground. Of course these change makers might or might not
be ordinary citizens or members of communities in need, and they might not be
part of the grassroots dened in other ways. What is more important is that
philanthropists of all shades move closer to the places where community needs
meet institutional responses.
Given these diverse characterizations, it is easy to see why grassroots philan-
thropy is of interest to theorists and practitioners who care about the health and
vigor of civil society. In its different manifestations, it appears to offer a promising
route to supporting the engagement of citizens in voluntary action and public pro-
cesses, thereby helping them to construct their visions of the good society (Edwards
2009). Grassroots philanthropy has proven to be a exible tool in supporting the
associational life of communities, helping funders to advance the common good,
and shaping the content and character of the public sphere. However, given the
substantial differences that exist between philanthropy to, with, and from the grass-
roots, one might expect these approaches to exhibit a range of strengths and weak-
nesses in relation to their ability to enhance civil society and civic engagement, with
the authenticity of citizen control and direction (or at least their involvement and
participation) as one key variable.
2. Philanthropy to the Grassroots

In philanthropy to the grassroots, ordinary citizens function primarily as benecia-
ries. They are the objects of a donors largesse, and often the clients served by funded
activities. In this form of philanthropy, the role of impacted communities is to
cooperate and, ideally, to be grateful. This holding of ordinary citizens at arms
length does not necessarily imply a lack of respect for the dignity or well-being of
communities in need. For institutional funders who practice philanthropy to the
grassroots, there may be any number of barriers to meaningful citizen participa-
tion, including limited staff resources and a lack of expertise in working with grass-
roots communities. In some cases a donor might enhance the grassroots character
of his or her interventions by supporting only those groups and projects that are
designed, managed, and evaluated by impacted communities.
There are some who opt to provide philanthropy to the grassroots simply
because they wish to cut out the intermediaries that can skew relationships between
donors and the objects of their generosity. Such funders prefer that their money
goes directly to those affected by a problem rather than helping to pay the salaries
of NGO staff members and other professionals. The Child Support Grants pro-
gram of the Frank Buttle Trust in the United Kingdom, for example, accepts appli-
cations from social workers, health visitors, and others who work directly with
low-income families. Grants awarded by the trust are used exclusively to provide
necessities such as clothes, beds, bedding, and other essential household items.3
Elsewhere, the choice to cut out the middle man may have less altruistic motiva-
tions. The November 13, 2009 issue of the New York Times, for example, reported
that the United States was using small grants given directly to villagers in Afghanistan
as part of a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at drawing people away from the

Taliban and building popular support for the Western-backed government by show-
ing that it can make a difference in peoples lives (Tavernise 2009). In these situa-
tions there is no effort to deny the purely instrumental character of giving. While
this is giving to the grassroots, it is clearly not for the grassroots but rather for the
purpose of making a tactical or strategic gain in a broader geopolitical game.
It is important to note that philanthropy to the grassroots is championed by
both conservative and liberal funders. In the U.S. context, for example, one of the
goals of progressive philanthropists is to amplify the voices of those who are mar-
ginalized in society and empower citizens to become more engaged in the political
processes that affect their lives, thus enabling them to address deeper issues of social
and political injustice. These funders understand that in order to achieve signicant
social change, political action from above must meet agitation from below. This
kind of pincer effect was much in evidence during the American civil rights strug-
gles of the 1950s and 1960s, when sweeping legislative changes were insufcient and
large numbers of ordinary people took to the streets to ensure that the new laws
would be enforced (Levy 1998). It is clear, however, that a commitment to the goal
of empowerment does not necessarily translate into the sharing of philanthropic
decision-making. The Greater New Orleans Foundations Community IMPACT
Program,4 for example, aims to help the poorest of the poor in the metropolitan
New Orleans region by awarding grants to organizations that empower ordinary
citizens. The program was designed in consultation with representatives from the
regions NGOs, but it does not currently involve community residents in program
leadership or grant decisions.
In a similar fashion, though arguing from a different ideological base, some so-
called small government conservatives in the United States see grassroots philan-
thropy as a means of strengthening communitiesboth ordinary citizens and
elitesagainst the intrusions of powerful, centralized governments intent on over-
regulating markets, sanctioning allegedly immoral behavior, and illegitimately redis-
tributing wealth through taxation. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, for
example, supports projects that seek to reinvigorate and re-empower the traditional,
local institutionsfamilies, schools, churches, and neighborhoodsthat provide
training in, and room for, the exercise of citizenship, pass on everyday morality to the
next generation, and cultivate personal character.5 The foundation also funds proj-
ects that encourage decentralization of power and accountability away from cen-
tralized, bureaucratic, national institutions back to the states, localities, and revitalized
mediating structures where citizenship is more fully realized. When set against a
large and allegedly intrusive central government, just about any community of inter-
est can claim the mantle of grassroots. This has been the case, for example, with the
conservative Tea Party movement in the United States. Although championed by
members of the political elite such as Sarah Palin and former congressman Tom
Tancredo, the Tea Party movement characterizes itself as a national collaborative
grassroots effort committed to exposing the bankrupt liberal agenda of President
Barack Obamas administration and the Democratically controlled 111th Congress.6
How effective is philanthropy to the grassroots? While one can construct many
plausible theories of change that lead from the funding of grassroots efforts to
transformed societies, there is little documented evidence that philanthropy to the
grassrootsat least as practiced by institutional fundershas ever played a deter-
mining role in securing deep-rooted social change. This may be due to a simple lack
of evidence, given that the real efcacy of grassroots philanthropy of any kind has
been so poorly researched, including its supposed impact on the strengthening of
civil society. Most information is sketchy and/or anecdotal, and until recently there
was no central repository even for program evaluations conducted and published
by foundations in the United States.7 But much depends on how one denes the
goals of these kinds of intervention: while they may not have achieved large-scale
gains in empowerment or poverty reduction, they have certainly brought concrete
benets to some communities and drawn others into the public policy process.
3. Philanthropy with the Grassroots

Partnerships with the grassroots, in which members of the community are involved
in the decision-making structures of philanthropy, help funders to ensure that their
efforts are rooted in the concerns of the people they wish to serve. By working with
the grassroots they can avoid perpetrating yet another well-meaning but ultimately
destructive intrusion into the lives of those who are most marginalized. Philanthropy
with the grassroots can also bring signicant benets to funders themselves if the
design and evaluation of programs are cogenerated and comanaged. According to
the U.S. afnity group Grassroots Grantmakers, this approach can develop new
relationships and perspectives that inform other program areas, increased credibil-
ity as an entity that has deep knowledge and understanding about its community,
and opportunities to create new partnerships with donors, local governments, and
other philanthropies. Grassroots grant-making is a strategy that contributes to a
funders capacity to serve as a community leader, demonstrates its commitment to
community accountability, and underscores the funding organizations unique
position in its community.8 One funder describes the building of relationships
with neighborhood residents in these terms: This is ground zero for kids and com-
munities. It is where they are spending their time. Their relationships are here. The
people who care for them are here (Saasta and Senty 2009, 13). Thus, partnering
with the grassroots can help funders to ensure that their actions are rooted in the
soil of peoples hard necessities, to quote Senator Albert Jeremiah Beveridge, who
is credited with coining the term grassroots (Sare 2008, 289). This, in turn, can lead
to better and more sustained outcomes.
The Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, for example, has had sig-
nicant experience developing participatory structures within its grant-making
processes. As part of its work in the European Union Peace and Reconciliation
Program, it instituted seven committees to provide advice on grant decisions, one

of which was made up of representatives of the victims of political violence in the
province (Kilmurray 2009, 5). Kilmurray notes that these participatory structures
have helped community-based activists to increase their understanding of the
quandaries of decision-making [about grants], an understanding that they, in turn,
were able to relay to their local community and group constituencies. It has built the
information and skills base of those involved, but most importantly of all in our
divided society, it facilitated networking and the building of relationships
(Kilmurray 2009, 6). Or take the Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres (FCAM)
which has a program called Ola Joven (or young wave) that focuses on groups led
by young women aged sixteen to thirty. This program makes use of participatory
evaluation and grant-making approaches. Funds are distributed through a process
in which applicants are invited to vote on proposal summaries. In keeping with this
spirit, grantees evaluate one another and themselves throughout the year using
FCAMs evaluation tools.9
These success stories aside, a number of practitioners in the eld of grassroots
philanthropy have noted that efforts to strengthen civil society will be resident-led
only up to the moment at which the funder decides that facilitators, trainers, and
other professionals are required, at which point a grassroots project will begin to lose
its bottom-up character. Along these same lines, when funders identify leadership in
a neighborhood they will often look for people who can act as their proxies in carry-
ing forward the funders agendaspeople who can be counted on, in other words, to
share their values and behave accordingly. In these cases, grassroots philanthropy
provides an illusion of democracy, but an unbridged gulf remains between the com-
munity and the funder. One might call this philanthropy in bad faith, when funders
unconsciously use their partnerships with the grassroots as a g leaf to cover their
own intentions. In describing its Rebuilding Communities Initiative, for example,
the U.S.-based Annie E. Casey Foundation laid out two apparently contradictory
objectives (Traynor 2002). One of these was to place residents at the center of the
community-building effort, meaning that residents would be tasked with dening
the change agenda. But at the same time, participating communities were required
to identify, reach out to, and involve traditionally disenfranchised constituents
within their target areas, as well as demonstrate that their . . . change agenda
[addressed] systemic changes at the community level (2002, 6). Participants were
also asked to [transform] the range of community-building activities in a given
community into some form of collective agenda and action for change (2002, 14).
In these cases, the culture of professionalized philanthropic activity clashes with
the cultures of grassroots communities. One could, perhaps, make some headway in
understanding the dynamics of these cultural clashes if the sociology and anthro-
pology of philanthropy were better understood. Unfortunately, most of the infor-
mation available about the cultures of individual and institutional givers comes
from rst-hand accounts by practitioners, occasionally published in articles and
blogs but frequently communicated only in hallway conversations at conferences
about philanthropy. As important, Kuhns (1962) famous dictum reminds us that
there are no theory-neutral observations in science. This principle applies mutatis

mutandis to philanthropy: when funders make an effort to take their cues from the
community, they will often be selective about who they listen to and, even after lis-
tening, what they decide to act on. In subtle and not so subtle ways, funders apply
their own lters to what they hear. They look and listen for conrmation of their
theories of social change but ignore information that might prompt too violent a
reorganization of their world views. The listening tours that philanthropists like to
conduct in the communities they support often conclude, after signicant invest-
ments of time and money, that the poor are just like usthat they want a good
education for their children, decent and affordable housing, quality health care, and
meaningful, well-paying jobs. This much is uncontroversial, but problems arise
when philanthropists begin to draw additional conclusions that are not rooted in
the diverse, lived realities of communities.
In 1992, the Boston Foundation, for example, conducted a series of commu-
nity roundtables under the aegis of its Persistent Poverty Project. It convened a
forty-three-member Strategy Development Group representing a wide array of
constituencies to study the problem of intergenerational poverty in Boston.
According to Charlotte Kahn, the project director, Through this process of deep
listening to the community and to one another, the Group concluded that we need
a new broad-based approach to eradicating persistent poverty, one that turns con-
ventional anti-poverty practice on its head. At its heart, this approach seeks to end
poverty by building community. It calls for a fundamental shift from servicing low-
income communities decitstreating the poor as clientsto investing in their
strengths as colleagues, neighbors, and citizens.10 According to this paradigm, those
who want to help the poor can do so most effectively by encouraging them to act on
their own behalf. By investing in their strengths as colleagues, neighbors, and citi-
zens, the poor would be empowered and encouraged to do such things as join their
neighborhood councils, serve on commissions, and take more time to petition
elected ofcials. Yet how many low-income citizens would forego a stronger social
safety net for the vagaries of political activism? Would a larger or different sample
of low-income people have led to the same conclusion? Many who work closely
with poor communities in the U.S. context (or who have been poor themselves)
have rst-hand experience of mothers and fathers who are exhausted from working
double shifts and dealing with the other daily challenges of living in poverty. Having
already cooked an evening meal after a long day at work and given quality time to
their children, how many people of limited means have sufcient energy to lead the
charge at their town council meeting? As with the noble savages of eighteenth-
century sentimentalism, the danger is that ordinary citizens become screens on
which funders project idealized versions of themselves, backed up by closely held
theories of social change in which the realities of the working poor are submerged.
One of the advantages of philanthropy with the grassroots is that the strengths
and weaknesses of funders and communities can be harmonized in order to cogen-
erate a larger impactan impact that is not limited by a wholesale reliance on the
ideas and resources of either philanthropy or the grassroots itself. The poor, it might
be argued, do not necessarily have any greater knowledge of how to change their
underlying conditions than anyone else, while professionals from outside the com-
munity may have a clearer picture of how power and privilege are created, pre-
served, and brokered in particular sociopolitical contexts. Funders in Chicago, for
example, expressed the issue in this way: Sometimes a place-based strategy is not
effective when broader forces are affecting an area . . . How do you understand that
organizing is local but, if its not connected to something larger, it can miss the
mark? Small grants can isolate or work against larger systemic change if they simply
stay small and dont link to the issues that drive what is happening in that commu-
nity (Saasta and Senty 2009, 36). Rather than err on the side of the philanthropist
or rely overmuch on purely local knowledge, perhaps the best way forward is simply
to acknowledge the tensions that exist and support a division of labor between
funders and the community. People of good will who come together to effect social
change will come from many walks of life and bring with them different skills and
perspectives, all of them critical to social change efforts.
4. Philanthropy from the Grassroots

Funding by and from the grassroots holds a special kind of promise. While the
amounts contributed might be small when compared to some of the sums awarded
by institutional funders, one can expect a high level of buy-in from members of a
community who give of their own time and money to address issues that directly
affect their lives. Examples from the United States include the individual contribu-
tions that made womens suffrage possible and the church collection plates that
fueled the civil rights movement in the 1950s. In 2007, fully 74.8 percent of charitable
contributions in the United States (a total of $229 billion) came from individuals,
and only 17.7 percent came from foundations and corporations.11 About a third of
individual giving went to religious institutions, followed by education (14.1 per-
cent), human services (9.7 percent), and health (7.6 percent). In 2007, some 61.3
million people volunteered in the United States, providing a total of 8.1 billion hours
of service or 34.7 hours per resident.12
This outpouring of time, treasure, and talent by ordinary citizens is, of course,
a global phenomenon, but its forms and motivations vary signicantly from one
context to another. In Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, for
example, Susan Wilkinson-Maposa and her colleagues (2006) have demonstrated
that giving among and between poor people is a much larger phenomenon than
anticipated even though roughly 20 million people in southern Africa live below the
poverty line of $1 a day, according to the United Nations Development Programs
Human Development Report.13 There are no natural cognates for the word philan-
thropy in the languages of these contexts, and even the concept of philanthropy
itself fails to resonate given its monetary connotations and the fact that it typically
implies that one person is the giver and another the recipient. Giving by the poor in
these countries, the study found, is marked by a high degree of reciprocity. To get
around these challenges, Wilkinson-Maposa and her colleagues used the term help
instead of philanthropy, and their ndings call into question some of the assump-
tions often made about philanthropy by and from the grassroots. The poor, it turns
out, are very active givers, but the archetype of the philanthropic acta donor
motivated by altruism and generosity to bestow his or her largesse on a grateful
supplicantis not instantiated in the Southern African contexts that were studied.
According to these researchers, help is not always, nor necessarily, a free choice.
Such behaviour can be driven by social duty as well as by a deep moral obligation
emanating from a shared identity premised on a common humanity. My humanity
is tainted if your humanity is not recognised and assisted when in need (Wilkinson-
Maposa 2006, xi).
In her book Enriques Journey, journalist Sonia Nazario chronicles the odyssey
of a young Honduran boy who faces unimaginable dangers to reconnect with his
mother in the United States (Nazario 2006). Unable to feed her children, Enriques
mother had left Honduras eleven years earlier to nd work in America. Enrique
makes his way north, as many migrants do, by clinging to the tops and sides of
freight trains. Its a dangerous journey. The trains travel through some of the
poorest stretches of Mexico and Central America, and yet it is common for the
people who live along the tracks to throw small bundles to the migrants as they
pass by: Families throw sweaters, tortillas, bread, and plastic bottles lled with
lemonade. A baker, his hands coated with our, throws his extra loaves. A seam-
stress throws bags lled with sandwiches . . . A stooped woman, Mara Luisa Mora
Martn, more than a hundred years old, who was reduced to eating the bark of her
plantain tree during the Mexican Revolution, forces her knotted hands to ll bags
with tortillas, beans, and salsa so her daughter, Soledad Vsquez, seventy, can run
down a rocky slope and heave them onto a train (Nazario 2006, 105). These acts
of kindness come at signicant cost to the givers described in Nazarios book, and
underscore the powerful motivations that often fuel giving by and from the
grassroots.
It should be noted that grassroots giving is not always an individual affair.
Giving circles, for example, constitute a form of participatory philanthropy that
has gained increasing visibility and support. In this form of giving, ordinary citizens
typically pool their funds and meet with one another over a period of time to learn
about issues and, ultimately, award grants collectively. A survey undertaken in 2006
identied 160 giving circles in the United States alone, involving 11,700 donors who
raised more than $88 million for community needs (Bearman 2007). These largely
self-organized groups support a wide array of causes and include a disproportion-
ately higher number of women, younger people, and other nontraditional philan-
thropists. Giving circles provide an especially promising route to building and
strengthening civil society. They bring citizens together to contribute to the com-
mon good, and they provide a structure through which people of modest means
can participate in more formal giving.
5. Conclusion: Does Grassroots

Philanthropy Really Make a Difference?
The paucity of research and data available leave many unanswered questions about
grassroots philanthropy. Has it been, as some suspect, the key to fueling important
social movements that have transformed societies? Or has it been a secondary inu-
ence, especially when its goals and methods have been dictated by societys elites?
For those who aim to strengthen civil society, can infusions of money from outside
a community really create lasting ties that bind? Or does a newly minted sense of
social cohesion typically dissolve when the donors disappear? Certainly, local victo-
ries have been achieved with help from philanthropy here and there, but do these
largely unconnected efforts add up to more than the sum of their parts? And what
of those cases where grassroots philanthropy may have been counterproductive by
weakening civil society and fueling intergroup divisions?
Part of the answer to these questions lies in the form and content of philanthropy
to, with and by the grassroots. While poor peoples giving to each other may in some
contexts be a matter of sheer survival, a signicant number of grassroots donors aim to
generate social changes thatbecause they are dened and directed by the poor
themselvesmay have a broader and deeper impact than can be owned and sustained
over time. In philanthropy to and with the grassroots, elite interpretations and institu-
tional norms often clash with the cultures and priorities of ordinary citizens, but many
of these donors act in good faith and have a genuine desire to reduce the dissonance
between their work and the aspirations of the communities they aim to serve. Horror
stories certainly exist,14 but they do not invalidate the many acts of human goodness
that have been attempted under the rubric of grassroots philanthropy. Going further,
one can also look to these skirmishes as opportunities to model the kinds of relation-
ships and interactions that are more likely to make philanthropy a handmaiden of
broader social transformation. After all, a strong civil society is as much a container for
healthy disagreement as a foundation for shared visions of the good.
Donors who aim to address the root causes of social problems through their
giving will likely nd grassroots philanthropy an indispensable tool. Clearly, there
are conceptual difculties in identifying anything like a root cause of poverty,
beyond the condition of having few resources. The phenomenon of poverty is part
of a dynamic system of many parts, all interacting with each other in complicated
ways. This complex system has no discernible root that can be pulled out of the
ground as one might do with the root of a noxious weed. Nevertheless solutions to
poverty and discrimination will surely evade us until we learn to draw more consis-
tently from the wisdom and activism that are rooted in ordinary peoples lived
experience of the problems that concern them. In that sense, philanthropy with, by,
and from the grassroots is likely to be an important element of efforts to build the
capacities and connections that are required to address social problems successfully
in the future.
NOTES
1. On issues related to the denition of social justice, see Ruesga and Puntenney (2010),
available at www.p-sj.org . The vagueness of the term social entrepreneur has been
frequently commented upon.
2. Compare http://www.grassrootsgrantmakers.org/page11805.cfm.
3. The Child Support Grants program is described on the Frank Buttle Trust website at
http://www.buttletrust.org/grant_aid/applying_for_a_child_support_grant/.
4. Compare the Greater New Orleans Foundation website at http://www.gnof.org/
programs/community-impact/overview/.
5. From the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation website, at http://www.bradleyfdn.
org/program_interests.asp.
6. Compare http://taxdayteaparty.com/about/.
7. The U.S.-based Foundation Center has attempted to address this gap in our knowl-
edge by collecting and publishing the program evaluations commissioned by grant makers.
These are currently available in the PubHub section of the organizations website at http://
foundationcenter.org/.
8. From the Grassroots Grantmakers website, at http://www.grassrootsgrantmakers.
org/page11805.cfm.
9. This prole is based on information supplied by FCAM staff in interviews con-
ducted by William Niedzwiecki. These interviews were conducted to prepare case study
materials for an international conference hosted by the Working Group on Philanthropy for
Social Justice and Peace. More information about this group is available at www.p-sj.org.
10. In an article titled Rebuilding Boston, available at http://bostonreview.net/BR19.3/
kahn.html. Archives of Persistent Poverty Project publications and other materials are avail-
able at http://www.library.neu.edu/archives/collect/ndaids/m127nd.htm.
11. See Giving USA 2008.
12. From the Corporation for National and Community Services Volunteering in
America website, at http://www.volunteeringinamerica.gov/national.
13. See http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2005/.
14. See, for example, Draper (2005).
REFERENCES
Bearman, J. 2007. More Giving Together: The Growth and Impact of Giving Circles and
Shared Giving. Washington, D.C.: Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers.
Draper, L. 2005. Funders Little Shop of Horrors: Misguided Attempts at Nonprot
Capacity Building. Foundation News and Commentary vol. 46(5): 1827.
Kilmurray, A. 2009. Grassroots Philanthropy: A Personal Perspective. Belfast: Community
Foundation for Northern Ireland.
Kuhn, T. 1962. The Structure of Scientic Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Levy, P. 1998. The Civil Rights Movement. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Nazario, S. 2006. Enriques Journey. New York: Random House.
Ruesga, G., and Puntenney, D. 2010. Social Justice Philanthropy: An Initial Framework for
Positioning This Work. New York: Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice
and Peace.
Saasta, T., and Senty, K. 2009. Building Resident Power and Capacity for Change.
Available at http://www.diaristproject.org/les/Building_Resident_Power.pdf.
Sare, W. 2008. Sares Political Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press.
Somerville, B. 2008. Grassroots Philanthropy: Field Notes of a Maverick Grantmaker.
Berkeley: Heyday Books.
Tavernise, S. 2009. Afghan Enclave Seen as Model to Rebuild, and Rebuff Taliban. The
New York Times, November 13.
The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. 2008. Giving USA 2008. Indianapolis,
Ind.: Giving USA Foundation.
Traynor, B. 2002. Reections on Community Organizing and Resident Engagement.
Baltimore: The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Wilkinson-Maposa, S., A. Fowler, C. Oliver-Evans, and C. Mulenga. 2006. The Poor
Philanthropist: How and Why the Poor Help Each Other. Cape Town: University of
Cape Town, Graduate School of Business.
chapter 37
ASSISTING CIVIL SOCIETY

AND PROMOTING
DEMOCRACY
omar g. encarnacin
In 2005, as part of its ambitious goal to transform Iraq into a beacon of democ-
racy in the Middle East, the administration of George W. Bush sponsored the cre-
ation of a Ministry of Civil Society, a new addition to the architecture of the Iraqi
state designed to complement other initiatives that included a new democratic con-
stitution, liberalizing the economy, and granting some degree of home rule to
minority communities. Although probably the only one of its kind in the world, the
existence of an Iraqi ministry of civil society speaks volumes about the critical
importance that U.S. ofcials have attached to civil society since the collapse of
Communism in the early 1990s, a process which is credited with ushering in the
view that civil society is the oil that greases the wheels of democracy (Bell 1989;
Putnam 1993; Gellner 1994; Fukuyama 1995; Diamond 1999; Putnam 2001).
However, there are compelling reasons to believe that civil society could meet
the same dispiriting fate that has been suffered by previous approaches to democ-
racy promotion that were once heralded as a silver bullet (modernization theory
comes rapidly to mind)primarily because the embrace of this concept by the
international development community, led by its largest and most inuential mem-
ber, the U.S. government, has been so uncritical and supercial. It is questionable
whether a concept so closely identified with the West and its most transforma-
tive experiencesthe Enlightenment, industrialization, and more generally,
modernizationcan be easily transported to the non-Western world. Civil society, at
least in its liberal guise, appears to rest on social and economic transformations that
cannot be created at will, however determined and well-nanced the efforts may be.
assisting civil society and promoting democracy 469
A more serious problem is the impoverished view of civil society that animates
democracy promotion, limited almost exclusively to nongovernmental organiza-
tions (NGOs) and especially to those that press for democratic freedoms. Although
compelling, this view of civil society stands in striking contrast to the more expan-
sive notions that inform academic discussions of the term, which emphasize a much
broader universe of voluntary and nonpolitical organizations, social networks, and
other forms of civic engagement. As presently conceived, civil society-based pro-
grams of democracy promotion may fall short of generating the pro-democratic
virtues that scholars have attributed to a strong civil society, especially in nurturing
the growth of a democratic public culture.
Finally, democracy promoters have erred in understanding the conditions
under which civil society can be most effective in advancing democracy by neglect-
ing the importance of the surrounding political environment. Broadly speaking, the
international development community has banked on a strong civil society as a
transformative political force capable of xing the political system. But largely miss-
ing from this expectation is the possibility that under deteriorating political condi-
tions, civil society can emerge as a foe rather than a friend of democracy, most likely
by being hijacked by antidemocratic forces. In supporting civil society development
at the expense of political institutionalization, democracy promotion may harm
rather than advance the cause of democratization.
1. The Embrace of Civil Society

Two decades ago, the mention of civil society would have raised a quizzical eyebrow
in discussions about democracy, but today the opposite is the case. This newfound
affection for civil society was set in motion by the highly romanticized reading of
the role of pro-democracy social movements in bringing about the demise of
Communism. As noted by Carothers (2000, 19), It was Czech, Hungarian, and
Polish activists who wrapped themselves in the banner of civil society, endowing it
with a heroic quality when the Berlin Wall fell. Notable among these activists were
inuential intellectuals such as Vclav Havel in the former Czechoslovakia and
Adam Michnik in Poland, whose writings depicted the collapse of Communism as
a victory of civil society over a totalitarian state. From this era of post-Cold War
exuberance emerged the view that civil society is synonymous with empowered
ordinary citizens and grassroots social movements working collectively from below
toward forming a parallel democratic polis to that which represented the ofcial
Communist totalitarian system and party-state (Encarnacin 2002a, 117).
New academic theories of political development lent intellectual credibility to
these ideas, and by the early 1990s, inuential scholars such as Putnam (1993) were
making the case for a strong civil society as the foundation for securing a viable and
healthy democracy, an argument that borrowed generously from Alexis de
Tocquevilles views of voluntary associations as the bedrock of American democ-

racy in the nineteenth century. In following this line of argument, Putnam placed
civil society ahead of more conventional variables in determining the development
of democracy, such as social and economic progress and political institutionaliza-
tion. Using Putnam as a theoretical launching pad, other academics turned the con-
cept of civil society into a magic cure for combating virtually all of societys ills,
from corruption to poverty, and from ethnic conict to mistrust in government
(Fukuyama 1995; Gellner 1995; Diamond 1999).
No less impressive was the embrace of civil society by politicians from the left
and the right, convinced that government alone could not solve all societys prob-
lems. Although the understanding of civil society among politicians has always been
vague, the general discourse surrounding this concept has increasingly emphasized
the core value of empowering the citizenry. For Hillary Rodham Clinton, grassroots
movements and community leaders were the answer to the to failures of govern-
ment in providing basic social functions such as education and child rearing, a
point underscored in her bestselling book It Takes a Village (1996). For George W.
Bush, private charities and religious organizations would improve the performance
of government in the delivery of public services, a key assumption behind the
agenda of compassionate conservatism. Characterizations of civil society as the
Zeitgeist of the post-Cold War era were not overstated (Carothers 2000).
2. Building the Infrastructure of Civil

Society Assistance
The institutional infrastructure of U.S. civil society assistance that was prompted by
this rising popularity was mostly developed under the presidency of William J.
Clinton, who came into ofce in 1993, beginning a revival of democracy-promotion
efforts as a central goal of U.S. foreign policy (Smith 1991).1 Clinton successfully
fought efforts by the U.S. Congress to shut down the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED) that had been created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to
ght the Soviet Union in a war of ideas (Carothers 1994, 123). For its critics, the
NED was a cold war relic that wastes taxpayers money on pork-barrel projects and
political junkets abroad (Carothers 1994, 125), but Clinton aimed to revive it and
also created new government organizations to support his administrations empha-
sis on democracy promotion such as the Center for Democracy and Governance at
the Agency for International Development (AID), and the State Departments
Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. He also introduced a special
assistant for democracy at the National Security Council.
In keeping with the fashions of the times, Clintons post-Cold War democracy-
promotion revival placed civil society development at the center of its mission.
Throughout the 1990s, AIDs civil society assistance budget skyrocketed from $56
million in 1991 to $231 million in 1999 (Carothers 1999, 50). This made spending on
civil society AIDs largest line item for democracy promotion between 1991 and
1999, exceeding the amount spent on the rule of law, governance, and elections and
political processes. The post-communist world was the principal destination of this
assistance, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and Latin
America (Carothers 1999, 51). Private aid to civil society quickly followed suit, led by
the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and George Soross Open
Society Institute. Actual levels of private civil society funding are elusive, since
although international philanthropies make transparency an intended goal of their
civil society assistance, this is not a virtue they themselves regularly uphold (Quigley
1997).
Following in the footsteps of the United States, other leading Western democra-
cies began to develop their own democracy-promotion institutions and programs,
including Great Britains Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), which
was created in 1992 to support the consolidation of democratic institutions and
principles in developing countries, and the European Initiative for Democracy and
Human Rights (EIDHR), launched by the European Union in 1994. Like their
American counterparts, civil society assistance features prominently in these
endeavors, representing something of a departure for European democracy aid
which historically had focused on more overtly political operations such as strength-
ening parliamentary institutions, consolidating the rule of law, and electoral train-
ing. Multilateral lending agencies, whose concern for issues of governance has
increased substantially in recent years, have also made civil society engagement and
consultation a requirement throughout much of their operations. For example,
World Bank-funded projects with a civil society component (mainly participation
by NGOs) have risen steadily over the past two decades, increasing from 21 percent
of total projects in 1990 to 72 percent in 2006 (World Bank 2010).
A more expansive approach to civil society developed under the presidency of
George W. Bush, whose commitment to promoting democracy abroad among
American presidents was exceeded perhaps only by that of Woodrow Wilson, the
patron saint of American democracy promotion.2 For President Bush, democracy
promotion was deemed not just a good thing, but a very necessary one. In the wake
of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the American government operated
under the assumption that a lack of democracy in the Middle East posed a direct
threat to the United States by turning the region into a center of radical anti-Amer-
icanism. This made democratizing the Muslim (and especially the Arab) world an
imperative of American foreign policy, an approach epitomized by the invasion of
Iraq in 2003. Announcing his view of democracy as the antidote to terrorism,
President Bush (2003) noted that the world has a clear interest in the spread of
democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of
murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life.
The Bush administrations agship program of civil society assistance was the
Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), which according to the State Department
was designed to expand political participation, and strengthen civil society and the
rule of law. Since its inception in 2002, MEPI has contributed over $530 million to
more than 600 projects in seventeen countries, and has continued under the admin-
istration of Barack H. Obama, even though the rhetoric of democracy promotion
has been dramatically toned down. As articulated by Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton during her Senate conrmation hearings in 2009, the Obama administra-
tion seeks to emphasize defense, diplomacy, and development, not democracy. Not
surprisingly, perhaps, Obamas high-prole Cairo speech of that same year, which
was intended to reset Americas relationship with the Arab world, was notable for its
modest references to democracy promotion, but faith in civil society remains high
in American foreign policy circles as Clinton herself noted in 2009: Building civil
society and providing tangible services to people help result in stronger nations that
share the goals of security, prosperity, peace, and progress.
3. A Questionable Export
Perhaps the most immediate concern raised by the adoption of civil society as a
focus in democracy-promotion programs is whether the concept can be effectively
exported outside of the social and economic milieu that gave it birth. Civil society
is one of oldest ideas in political theory, but its conceptual maturity arrived in the
eighteenth century, when the term began to acquire its traditional connotation as
the realm of associational life that is voluntary, self-supporting, and self-regulating,
outside of the family, the market and the state (Seligman 1991; Hall 1995; Walzer
1998). This is hardly accidental given the economic and social developments that
were transforming Western Europe at the time, especially the rise of capitalism that
had been triggered by the commercialization of agriculture and the advent of indus-
trialization, which developed hand in hand with the emergence of chambers of
commerce and charities, learned societies, and later, the development of political
parties, trade unions, and other working class and mutual-interest organizations
(Bermeo and Nord 2000). This new sphere of private associations launched the idea
that civil society was essential for securing and protecting liberty by creating a buf-
fer zone between the state and the citizenry that kept in check the states inherent
authoritarian tendencies.
It is questionable whether this kind of organic development, where economic
and social progress nurtured the rise of independent social organizations, is avail-
able in many parts of the world where Western donors are investing in democracy
promotion, especially in the Middle East. Capitalism has made signicant inroads
in this region, but has not lead to the kind of social and economic development that
boosts civil society by strengthening society vis--vis the state. The peculiarities of
development in the Middle East, such as state-led industrialization fueled by oil
revenues, have increased the states capacity to control society through the expan-
sion of the military and the bureaucracy (Owen 1992). For a whole host of reasons,
including the failure of governments in the post-colonial era to efciently manage

the process of development, the bulk of the citizenry remains poor and uneducated,
and the middle and working classes, where they exist, are relatively small and disor-
ganized and hence severely limited in their capacity to affect politics. Labor unions,
a primary component of civil society in the West, remain either non-existent or are
repressed by the state (Abootalebi 1998, 47).
More recent developments, such as the advent of structural adjustment policies
that were intended to liberalize the economy in the 1980s and 1990s, have weakened
the state across the Middle East and have led to the rise of private associations of
various purposes and sizes (Hawthorne 2005). In turn, these developments have
given way to considerable hope for a breakthrough in civil society in the Middle
East. But there are many reasons to be cautious about what this breakthrough might
accomplish in terms of democratization. For one thing, state nancial and coercive
power remains strong and far superior to the resources available to its social, eco-
nomic and political opposition (Abootalebi 1998, 46). Thus, it is not surprising that
the challenge to the state posed by emerging civil society actors such as the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, has hardly been sufcient to push the state
to change its domestic and foreign policies (Abootalebi 1998, 46).
More ominous is the fact that the fastest growing voluntary associations across
the Middle East pose a real challenge to the rise of a liberal civil society. Arguably the
brightest spot in the development of civil society in the Middle East in recent years
is the so-called Islamic sector, the large network of groups, associations, and move-
ments whose common objective is upholding and propagating the faith of Islam
(Hawthorne 2005, 85). This outburst of associational activity is part of an Islamic
resurgence in recent years, propelled in part by the desire to ll the void left behind
by the failure of the state in areas such as healthcare, education, and housing, but
the implications for democracy are hardly the ones that are usually associated with
civil society. Some Islamic organizations are among the most vociferous denounc-
ers of democracy as a corrupt liberal system, and they often use the services they
provide to the public as a vehicle to spread antidemocratic views. As noted by Sheri
Berman (2003), practical help is accompanied by a deeper message: Islam is the
way.
4. Contrasting Images of Civil Society

A second concern about democracy-promotion programs is whether they are tar-
geting the most effective or potentially effective civil society organizations. When
contemplating what matters most to democracy within the vast landscape of civil
society associations, scholars and donor agencies see starkly different things.
Although there is no consensus in the literature on civil society on what this
term actually means, three denitions are generally emphasized: civil society as
associational life, as a kind of society (marked out by certain social norms), and as
a space for citizen action and engagement (the public square or sphere: Edwards
2009). Among these denitions, the rst is the most popular, owing largely to the
inuence of Robert Putnam and other neo-Tocquevilleans who see civic, and essen-
tially nonpolitical, associations at the heart of civil society. Recreational associations
like choral societies, hiking and bird-watching clubs, literacy circles, hunters asso-
ciations, Lions Clubs, and others, are Putnams most praised manifestations of a
healthy civic life.
Aid agency ofcials engaged in democracy promotion, however, have shown
very little interest in supporting the organizations championed by Putnam, even as
they cite his writings to legitimize their advocacy for civil society assistance. As
noted by Carothers (1999, 213), although U.S. aid providers have nothing against
choral societies, sports clubs and other forms of civil association that do not do
much advocacy work, they are not inclined to devote aid funds to them in the belief
that such groups are a less likely direct route to strengthening democracy than advo-
cacy organizations. Instead, it is the NGO world that has captured the imagination
of democracy promotion.
For many donors, civil society and NGOs are virtually synonymous. According
to USAID ofcials, civil society refers to non-state organizations that can or have
the potential to champion democratic/governance efforts (Hansen 1996, 3), and it
is in the expansion of NGOs that American ofcials see the most tangible evidence
of the effectiveness of their support for civil society development (USAID 1999).
The roots of NGO-ization extend beyond the reputation of NGOs as groups that
are indispensable for advancing transparency in government, respect for human
rights, and the consolidation of the rule of law. NGOs are also seen as uniquely
suited to receive and manage foreign aid. In the view of the U.S. government and
many other international agencies, NGOs are lean in their organizational struc-
ture, nimble in their programmatic capacities, impervious to corruption and scan-
dal, and accountable for their spending. As such, NGOs not only alleviate fears
among international donors about the potential mismanagement of public funds,
but they also allow donors to play an important role in the domestic affairs of for-
eign countries while avoiding the charge of playing politics (Ottaway and
Carothers 2000, 12).
Unfortunately, much appears to have been sacriced by reducing civil society
almost exclusively to NGOs. Among the many things that made Putnams work on
civil society so provocative (if not outright controversial) was the argument that
civil societys main contribution to a democratic public life was not its advocacy
work on behalf of democracy but rather the production of social capital, or a cul-
ture of trust, reciprocity, and collaboration. Without a rich endowment of social
capital, Putnam argued, democracy would nd it difcult to survive and much less
thrive. He focused on voluntary associations for one very specic reason: only this
type of association can serve as a school for democracy by enhancing the demo-
cratic capacities and skills of the citizenry, bringing people together in horizontal
relations of reciprocity and cooperation (Putnam 1993, 88).3
Little in the constitution of NGOs suggests that they possess any automatic
capacity to advance the production of social capital. Although NGOs come in all
shapes and sizes, few bring large numbers of citizens into close and sustained inter-
action with each other. In reality, the structure of most NGOs mirrors the kind of
social organizations that Putnam regards an antithetical to the formation of social
capital. These organizations include those that are highly bureaucratized and/or
institutionalized, and those that generally involve the citizenry in their endeavors in
vertical relations of authority and dependency, such as trade unions and religious
organizations (Putnam 1993, 88).
The democratizing capacity of advocacy NGOs is further diminished, para-
doxically enough, by their connections to international donors. The Ford
Foundations attempts to build womens organizations in post-communist Russia,
for example, illustrate how foreign donors support for NGOs can actually under-
mine both civil society and democracy (Henderson 2003). Unintentionally, the
Foundations endeavors resulted in the creation of an oligarchy of powerful and
well-funded groups that on the whole, has not been conducive to democratic devel-
opment. Those groups lucky enough to be rewarded with funding have found
themselves isolated from Russian society by the resentment they have generated
among others that were denied foreign funding. This is thought to have exacerbated
the lack of social trust that is already a serious concern in Russian society. To make
matters worse, foreign assistance has made the groups that were funded more
dependent on their donors rather than on their domestic constituencies, thereby
weakening their roots in Russian society and their connections to other social
forces.
5. Ambiguities and Paradoxes in Civil

Society and Democracy
The most distressing thing about the embrace of civil society by democracy-
promotion advocates, however, is that it has ignored the many ambiguities and
paradoxes that make civil society both a friend and a foe of democracy. Whether
civil society helps or hinders democracy appears to depend not so much on the
constitution of its individual components but rather on the nature and characteris-
tics of the surrounding political environment, a point stressed by many critics of the
civil society revival (Berman 1998; Bermeo and Nord 2000; Encarnacin 2006).
When political institutions are effective in channeling citizens demands and enjoy
broad popular legitimacy, civil society can be counted on to buttress democracy.
But in the context of a failing political system, civil society, especially if it is large
and expanding, can serve to undermine democracy. By and large, democracy pro-
moters have ignored the dependent nature of civil societys political impact, rmly
believing that civil society is inherently democratic, and that its expansion is always
an unmitigated blessing for democratic politics. Although appealing, this logic gets
the sequence of political development backwards. Building a stable and legitimate
political system that includes governments that are accountable, credible state agen-
cies, and political parties rmly rooted in society, should always have priority over
the development of civil society, whether this is understood as consisting of NGOs,
voluntary associations, or social networks. Neither a well-functioning democracy
nor a democratic associational landscape can be attained without a signicant level
of political institutionalization. Quite the contrary, as many societies have come to
recognize, a civil society that thrives in the midst of failing political institutions can
be a recipe for political disaster.
One of the clearest examples of this process at work is Weimar Germany.
According to Berman (1997, 402), during the interwar era Germans threw them-
selves into their clubs, voluntary associations and professional organizations out of
frustration with the national government and political parties. But rather than
serving to save the day for democracy, a stronger civil society became an essential
element in democracys breakdown by providing a ready-made base of support for
Hitlers Nazi party in its conquest of German society. Ironically, democracy would
have fared better under a less robust civil society. Berman (1997, 402) contends that
had German civil society been weaker, the Nazis would never had been able to
capture so many citizens for their cause or eviscerate their opponents so swiftly.
A more recent drama about the perils posed by an invigorated civil society for
democracy is playing itself out in Venezuela, where trade unions and business asso-
ciations staged a civil society coup in 2002 that led to the temporary removal of
Hugo Chvez from power, a democratically elected leader whose left-wing policies
have upset the balance of power in Venezuelan politics dating back to the late 1950s.
The U.S. government was quick to praise the actions of civil society groups in
Venezuela as a victory for democracy, before having to retract that statement with
the following corrective: defending democracy by undemocratic means destroys
democracy (Encarnacin 2002b, 45). More embarrassing for U.S. ofcials were the
persistent rumors that linked American civil society assistance to Venezuelan groups
that were involved in the attempted coup. Just prior to the coup, the National
Endowment for Democracy had stepped up its civil society assistance programs in
Venezuela, quadrupling its budget to more than $877,000 (Marquis 2002).
6. Conclusion
Oddly enough, many of the criticisms highlighted in this chapter provide some-
thing of a roadmap for ensuring that the incorporation of civil society into
democracy-promotion programs generates some positive results. The rst lesson is
not to neglect the prime importance of social and economic development in the
promotion of democracy. If we have learned one thing about democratization over

the last fty years it is that there is no better guarantee than an educated and pros-
perous citizenry for the rise of a democratic public culture. Secondly, democracy
promoters should think beyond NGOs when conceiving of civil society. Despite the
lack of a scholarly consensus on what civil society stands for, there is widespread
agreement that for civil society to realize its pro-democratic virtues, it must serve
the functions of bringing citizens together and building bridges across different
social groups. For all of their talent and their skill, NGOs are generally constrained
in their capacity to unify society. Indeed, what makes them so effective as demo-
cratic watchdogsespecially their focus on specic concerns such as corruption
and human rightscan often make them polarizing in the public sphere.
Finally, the expectation that nurturing the development of civil society in iso-
lation from the messiness, corruption, and partisanship of politics will bring about
a democratic transformation of the polity is far from realistic, and may in fact be
counterproductive. At some level, civil and political society must meld together to
form the good society that makes democracy both possible and enduring. How
to bring about this union in radically different settings is one of the main chal-
lenges facing civil society assistance and democracy promotion in the many years
ahead.
NOTES
1. Clintons devotion to expanding the community of democracies owed from his

belief that democracy is the source of international order, a view rooted in the classic
international relations argument that sees the spread of democracy as the key to peace
owing to the rarity of wars between democratic states (Doyle 1993).
2. Wilson launched multiple military interventions in Mexico, the Caribbean, and
Central America between 1911 and 1921 under the pretext of making the world safe for
democracy (Smith 1991).
3. Putnam has been criticized for ignoring the fact that social capital is something of a
double-edged sword. Social trust can further democratization or be employed for undem-
ocratic purposes (Levi 1996). Other critics of Putnam such as Berman (1997) have argued
that malevolent civil society associations often do a better job at promoting trust and
solidarity than benevolent ones.
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chapter 38
CONCLUSION: CIVIL
SOCIETY AS A NECESSARY
AND NECESSARILY
CONTESTED IDEA
michael edwards
As is obvious from the contributions to this handbook, civil society is not a concept
that yields to easy consensus, conclusion, or generalization. Context is all, and ideol-
ogy is closer to the surface of many analyses than their authors might admit, espe-
cially around contentious issues such as civil societys normative content and
signicance, and its relationships with government and the market. These are issues
on which even the small numbers of contributors who are represented here some-
times disagree. But wholesale agreement is not essential to the utility of any set of
ideas, whether in theory or in practice. As a necessarily contested concept, to use
Michael Woolcocks description in chapter 16, it is enough that civil society continues
to prove itself to be a useful and motivational device in advancing our understanding
of key social and political issues, and in channeling energy into action. And on this
test it succeeds admirably. One would be hard-put to explain the course of politics,
democracy, social relations, and societal change without some reference to the ways
in which citizens organize themselves for normative purposes, articulate and argue
about their ideas, and fashion some sense of vision and direction for the future of the
communities to which they belong. Ideas about civil society do not resolve the ten-
sion between society and the market that has animated scholarship and debate for a
century or more, for no such absolute resolution is possible. But without competing
visions of the good society, public spheres in which they can be developed and
conclusion 481
solidied, and associations that create an infrastructure for collective action between
the individual and the state, no democratic progress would be possible.
As the civil society literature is enriched by more non-Western and nonorthodox
perspectives, the differences between schools of thought and their interpretations will
grow, and many existing assumptions will be challenged much more deeply. This is
surely a healthy development. It has always been somewhat ironic that ideas about
collective action have been so inuenced by thinkers in the United Statesto many
the home of individualismand this tendency continues today with the rise of theo-
ries around social enterprise and philanthrocapitalism that treat civil society almost
as a subset of the market. But as the U.S experience settles into a broader universe of
knowledge shaped by ideas from China and the Arab world, Africa, and Latin America,
this will change, andthough these societies may yet converge on a common path-
way to the futureit is likely that much more attention will be paid to the distinctive
characteristics they exhibit around issues of social identity, the role of the state, and
other important matters. In addition, the ways in which different social groups under-
stand and interpret these ideas should also nd a more central position in the main-
stream of civil society thinking, as Hilda Coff and Catherine Bolzendahl enjoin us to
do in their treatment of gender and citizenship in chapter 20. Many more layers of
complexity and difference are waiting to be uncovered in the civil society debate.
Nevertheless, patterns do exist, some of which are anchored in common experi-
ences of the challenges of capitalism and democracy and how civil society can help
to meet them, and some of which are more supercial, perhaps even articial,
because they are generated by the uctuating characteristics and preferences of
donor support in places where civil society groups rely on outside assistancefor
example, support to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that advocate for civil
and political liberties, or to those that provide social and economic services to the
poor, rather than to other expressions of associational life. These patterns indicate
that there are forces acting both for and against indigenous articulations of civil
society in both theory and in practice, and this is an important conclusion given
that such articulations should have more chance of developing sustained and effec-
tive responses to the problems facing their communities. What is it, therefore, that
underpins the achievements of civil society across so many different contexts, and
what can be done to strengthen those achievements in the future?
1. The Changing Shape

of Associational Life
In every context, the structure of associational life is an important inuence over out-
comes, though clearly there is no automatic transmission belt that links the forms,
norms, and achievements of civil society together. Yet despite wide differences in history
and culture, regime types, funding arrangements, and other signicant factors, the
shape of associational life does seem to be changing in similar ways across the world,
variously described as professionalization, NGO-ization, hybridization, and the
erosion of certain kinds of civic participation and engagement. The nonprot sector
has always an important component of associational life, but it seems to be increas-
ingly dominant, especially in providing social services and advocating for change in
public policy processes. By contrast, as Theda Skocpol shows for the United States in
chapter 9, membership groupsand especially those that tie the interests of different
communities togetherhave been declining for thirty years or more, and survey after
survey shows a continuing fall in the proportion of respondents attending meetings,
working on community projects, and reading newspapers from the early 1970s
onwards.1 In developing countries, NGOs already dominate the landscape of associa-
tional life (and are usually funded by foreign aid), even though most societies have
their own rich traditions of organizing and debate, albeit in less formal ways. Using
the analogy of civil society as an ecosystem introduced in chapter 1, it is clear that
certain elements are being eroded and others strengthened, and that overall, greater
homogeneity is being introduced into the forms of associational life. As in a real, bio-
logical ecosystem, this is bound to have signicant effects over time.
Does this mean that civil society is in decline? In some ways and in some places,
yesthough this decline may be offset, at least in part, by the rise of new forms of
engagement, often based around social media and the Internet, and by new types of
association such as social enterprise and social entrepreneurs, which Alex Nicholls
sees as potentially revolutionary in chapter 7. As yet, it is unclear what the aggregate
effects of these changes are going to be, but why are traditional forms of civic par-
ticipation and activism under greater pressure? As Robert Putnam (2000) and oth-
ers have tried to show for the United States, a myriad of factors are involved, ranging
from structural changes in the economy and the workforce (which reduce the time
available for voluntary activities), to rising factionalism in politics amid the culture
wars of the last twenty years (which have destroyed bridges between different social
groups), to the rise of more passive forms of media production and consumption,
from television to Twitter. Widespread insecurity and inequality may be especially
important, and are explored below. All these factors weaken large-scale, mass-based,
bottom-up, cross-class, and multi-issue organizing and other forms of civic action.
But there are also more deliberate forces at work. Despite their stated support
for democratization, donor agencies have consistently sought out and funded ser-
vice delivery by NGOs, with some advocacy around the edges, ignoring or devalu-
ing other roles and other expressions of associational life from burial societies to
political-religious movementsdespite the fact that such groups have stronger
roots in their own constituencies and therefore more legitimacy and sticking power
in terms of social action. The agenda of the new public management described by
Steven Rathgeb Smith in chapter 3 has been a powerful force around the world in
favoring more professional and/or bureaucratic civil society groups who can meet
increased demands for reporting and accountability around public service and
other contracts, a social and economic role that is welcomed by even authoritarian
and semiauthoritarian regimes who are nervous about civil societys more political
conclusion 483
activities. At a more basic level, the struggle between neo-liberal and participa-
tory models of civil society painted by Evelina Dagnino for Latin America in chap-
ter 10 is playing out across a much wider range of contexts, often being decided in
favor of the nonprot sector in substitution for the stateso much so that civil
society and the social economy of nonprot service provision are often conated.
Such a dangerously reductive approach strips civil society of much of its meaning
and potential, and this is why changes in the structure of associational life are so
important, especially if they are engineered from the outside.
As Alan Fowler points out in chapter 4, development NGOs are much less likely
to act as carriers of alternative ideas and energies if they captured by the foreign aid
system and its priorities, managed through technocracy, and distanced from domestic
social movements and other civic and political actors who have more purchase over
the drivers of development. Spaces for public work, as Harry Boyte describes them
in chapter 26, have been systematically eroded in the United States by a rising predi-
lection for service-providing nonprots, and when the language and practices of con-
tracting replace those of trust and solidarity, one would expect the normative effects
of associational life to be somewhat different. These effects might be mitigated by
combining different forms and roles together in creative ways, as in the social change
organizations described by Frances Kunreuther in chapter 5, or when churches and
other faith-based groups integrate service delivery with advocacy and community
organizing, but these remain unorthodox approaches (Minkoff 2002). Elsewhere, the
changing shape of associational life may indeed be damaging to the broader prospects
of civil society, and to the democratic associational ecologies that Mark Warren
highlights in chapter 30 as the key to civil societys long-term political impact. As a
number of contributors put it for the Middle East, India, Sub-Saharan Africa, and
elsewhere, more NGOs do not a civil society make. In that case, what does?
2. Civil and Uncivil Society

A great deal of energy has been expended on dening uncivil society, perhaps
because, once so dened, it might go away, or at least cease to complicate some
models of civil societys normative content and signicance. But as Clifford Bob
points out in chapter 17, much, if not most of this effort is misguided. Persistent
differences in norms and values are the reality of every human society, and inevita-
bly they are expressed in, by, and through associations and the public sphere. Indeed,
this is one of the prime purposes of public work and public deliberationto pro-
vide spaces in which these differences can be aired and argued through to some sort
of consensus. So rather than fretting in the abstract about which groups qualify
for civil society membership, it is more productive to use conict around different
views as a pathway to the good societies that should emerge out of democratic
negotiation. Writing about the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) in India in chapter 14, which some would classify as a clearly uncivil move-
ment, Neera Chandhoke concludes that the only way in which such associations
can be neutralized is through contestation in civil society itself.
As Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani point out in chapter 6, civil society
theory and social movement theory have often been divided on the issue of conicts
over power and their value, and there is no doubt that this approach necessitates a
celebration of diversity at a much deeper level, and a higher level of comfort with
contestation, than have been present in much of the discussion to datebut it is the
only way to advance civil societys transformative potential, since transformation
implies the ability to break up and re-order power relations, norms, and values. As
Jenny Pearce puts it in chapter 32, the normative power of civil society lies not in the
specic values which different traditions attach to the concept, but in the general
value of aspiring to such a society, created through the contested values of what good
actually means. And even if these contestations take place in imperfect conditions of
equality, nonviolence, and democracy in the deepest sense of that word, there is more
of a chance that they will bend towards justice over the very long term, to para-
phrase Martin Luther Kings famous maxim, a point to which I turn next.
It is clear that successful, democratic negotiations of this kind require some
boundariessome norms and values of their ownsince otherwise they would
quickly break apart or be dominated by powerful interest groups, especially in settings
where high levels of inequality and discrimination continue to exist. There are at least
two ways of setting out these boundaries. The rst is to insist on support for the con-
tested core conditions of civil society that were described in chapter 1those things
without which no theory of civil society could function effectively in linking means
and ends, even if some differences in interpretation continue to exist. Chief among
these conditions are nonviolence and support for high levels of equality. A commit-
ment to physical nonviolence ensures that no group can destroy absolutely the rights
of others to participate, but it does not prevent the conicts and contestations that are
essential to a thriving civil society. Peace is an activity of cultivating the process of
agreeing, not simply the absence of war (Pearce, this volume), and to be effective and
sustainable this process of agreeing must allow all voices to be heard. As Sally Kohn
points out in chapter 19, and as many other contributors conrm, large-scale inequality
impedes the functioning of civil society in all three of the denitions covered in this
handbookassociational life, the good society, and the public sphereand more par-
ticularly they also fracture the linkages that connect these three understandings
together. Inequalities in associational life privilege civic and political participation by
some groups over others, allowing them undue voice and inuence in the public sphere
and enabling them to skew collective visions of the good society towards their
interests.
The second way of approaching the issue of civil societys normative boundaries
is to focus on the connections that can be nurtured between the values of particular
groups, and some larger set of norms that bind groups together in common cause,
or at least in a common conversation about the shape of social progress. In times of
war or national crisis this is obviously much easier, but the bonds of mutual
conclusion 485
sacrifice that are often forged during episodes like this rarely linger longwhich is
one reason why observers in the United States often lament the passing of high lev-
els of civic engagement during and after World War II that underpinned the GI Bill
of 1944 and other landmark social achievements (Skocpol, this volume). In chapter
18, Nina Eliasoph tackles this issue by exploring the relationships between civility
(dened as interaction that is respectful, tolerant and decent) and civic-ness
(dened as a commitment to press for wider changes that extend these values
throughout society). By strengthening the ties between civility and civic-ness
through associational life and public work, she argues, civil society takes on a more
transformative persona. In this task, face-to-face interaction is essential, sincelike
rocks in a streamthe sharp edges of their differences can be softened over time as
people knock against each other in the rough and tumble of civic life. Unfortunately
for the techno-optimists that Roberta Lentz reviews in chapter 27, this is not a task
that can be achieved in cyberspace or by using social media.
In many ways religion and spirituality are linked together in similar fashion. As
the contributions from Donald Miller and Claudia Horwitz both make clear (chap-
ters 21 and 22), only when religion is connected to, and anchored in, transcendent
experience and universal human values does it become potentially transformative,
building on, but not being imprisoned by, the particularities of each faith tradition,
mosque or church. There are clear echoes throughout this conversation of the love
that does justice, Martin Luther Kings philosophy that shows how personal and
social transformation are intimately linked together (Edwards and Sen 2000; Edwards
and Post 2008). Civil society can be, but is not necessarily transformative of power,
as John Gaventa puts it in chapter 33. What seems to make the difference is the explicit
articulation of these linkages and their use in guiding behavior at all timesamong
individuals, groups, and eventually whole institutions. When this happens, the means
and ends of civil society are united, and a strong civil society can foster societies
that are strong and civil (Edwards 2009). In other words, when certain conditions
are present, the forms, norms, and spaces of civil society connect with each other in
common purpose. But what if these conditions are not met? What if inequality and
other barriers to participation are rooted in civil society itself? Can threats to the
public sphere be dealt with simply through more debate and deliberation?
3. Threats to the Public Sphere

Placing ones faith in the theories of Jrgen Habermas has become a standard
response in the civil society debate to questions of moral pluralism and consensus
making, and there is no doubt that the debate has improved greatly as a result.
Without a range of overlapping public spheres and the processes that take place
inside them, even a rich fabric of voluntary associations could achieve little in the
aggregate. However, as many contributors to this handbook point out, Habermas
underestimates the forces that shape public spheres and interfere with their ability
to generate democratic outcomes, and at a time of rising economic inequality across
the world, increasing concentrations of corporate power, and continued political
repression in many countries, these forces may be growing stronger. To imagine that
one can strengthen civil society by eroding the things that people depend on to be
active citizens makes little sense, yet inequalities and power relations of various
kinds have often been ignored or devalued in discussions of civic life, perhaps
because some have their origins in, or at least are mirrored by, voluntary associa-
tions themselves. This is why, contrary to much neo-Tocquevillean thinking, civil
society cannot x itselfand if it cannot x itself then it is unlikely to be able to x
society as a whole. Confronting poverty, inequality, and discrimination requires
action by states and markets too, but civil society cannot afford to be captured by
these other institutions if it is to hold them accountable for their actions and fulll
its role as the carrier of different norms and values.
Inevitably then, civil society is forever positioned in a Janus-faced relationship
with both government and business. On the one hand, equal protections must be
anchored in the law and backed up by public policies and regulations, while the
economy must be free to create jobs and expand the surpluses required for con-
sumption and redistribution. This requires a stance of constructive engagement on
the part of civic actors. On the other hand, without constant pressure and monitor-
ing from civil society, neither governments nor businesses are likely to use their
power in the public interest, and this necessitates a stance of critical distance, or at
least independence. This is why some recent trends in civil society thinking and
practice constitute both opportunities and threats, like the expansion of social
enterprise and the rise of more overt forms of civil society organizing for political
ends. The costs and benets of these strategies must be carefully weighed to ensure
that good intentions are not submerged by unintended consequences, and this
requires a well-developed set of capacities that can help civic groups to come to
informed decisions about strategy and tactics. In chapter 11, Marc Morj Howard
calls this a shift from oppositional to democratic civil society, and concludes
that the weakness of associations and public engagement in post-Communist
Europe can be attributed, at least in part, to a failure to make this transition.
Hence, the encounter between civil society and the market can foster both
transformation and greater inequality, depending on the terms of this engagement,
and on this question the contributors are divided. In chapters 7 and 34, Alex Nicholls
and Simon Zadek argue strongly that closer relationships are positive, and indeed
imperative, if civil society is to have more impact on poverty, injustice, and social
needs. Sometimes these relationships will take the form of hybrid institutions, and
at other times they will operate through what Zadek describes as civil regulationor
various forms of advocacy and co-governance that help to shape corporate activity.
Taking a somewhat different view, John Ehrenberg concludes chapter 2 by stressing
the paramount importance of economic democratization and democratic political
action in addressing key structural problems in society. Civic traditions of volunta-
rism and localism are simply unable to cope with the rise of globalizing capitalism
conclusion 487
and the power of large, multinational corporations, and, as Lisa Jordan points out
in chapter 8, global civil society has not yet reached the point at which it can act as
an effective counterweight to global markets. In terms of the balance of power in
most contemporary settings, markets outrank civil society at almost every level, and
public spheres have been further eroded by the privatization and commercializa-
tion of the media, knowledge production, and large parts of education. The civic
knowledge that Peter Levine describes in chapter 29 is in increasingly short supply.
These trends make the protection and expansion of public spaces even more impor-
tant, despite the difculties involved, a point strongly made by Craig Calhoun and
Charles Lewis in chapters 25 and 28. At all costs, such spaces must not be captured
by business or other concentrated private interests, and clearly governments have a
major role to play in ensuring that this does not happen.
Unfortunately, relations between civil society and government are not moving in
this direction in many parts of the world. Authoritarian and semiauthoritarian regimes
continue to constrain, and in some cases actively repress, civil society, at least in its
political manifestations, though as Jude Howell shows for China in chapter 13, such
strategies can be quite sophisticated in carefully calibrating different spaces for non-
prot service provision and citizen advocacy at different times. Even in mature democ-
racies, however, few governments are comfortable in actively promoting civil societies
that are strong and independent enough to challenge their authority, especially after
the events of September 11, 2001 and the ensuing war on terror which has exposed cer-
tain groups and activities to particular attention and interference. In chapters 23 and
24, Nancy Rosenblum, Charles Lesch, and Mark Sidel examine how to balance the
rights and responsibilities of civil society in this context, highlighting the dangers of
overregulation and advocating for approaches that are based on partnerships, mutual
agreements, or compacts which protect zones of independent citizen action, even
when large numbers of nonprot groups are funded by government expenditure.
Whichever position one adopts, it is clear that the structure of the economy and
the nature of the political regime are the most powerful factors in determining the
shape and functioning of associations and the public sphere, including in settings
where religion is sometimes assumed to be paramounta point well-made by
Eberhard Kienle in chapter 12 in relation to the supposed incompatibility between
civil society and Islam. But if this is the case, where does this leave the growing
industry of donor agencies, foundations and other institutions that aim to build
or strengthen civil society by focusing on particular forms of association across
radically different contexts?
4. Can Civil Society Be Nurtured?

Omar Encarnacin opens his account of donor assistance in chapter 37 with the
story of Iraqs rst Ministry of Civil Society, a peculiar priority in a country lacking
basic security and services but not so strange given the inuence of American
democracy promoters after the deposition of Saddam Husseins regimewho, not
unnaturally, were no doubt enamored of Alexis de Tocqueville and his ideas. The
point of this story goes beyond the obvious issues of sequencing and the dangers of
inappropriate intervention, to pose more fundamental questions about the mean-
ing of civil society-building at a much deeper level. If civil society means many
different things and if these differences must be reconciled through dialogue and
conict over long periods of time, is there anything useful that can be done to accel-
erate the development of associations and public spaces in ways that are responsible,
and to foster more interaction between them and with the state and the market in
order to promote a more sustainable vision of the good society?
In many ways we know what not to do in answering this question, but we are
much less clear about the alternatives. A forced march to civil society Western-style
will do little to support the emergence of sustainable forms and norms in China,
Africa, or the Middle East. An overemphasis on NGOs and service-delivery projects
cannot change the civic and political cultures of India or Mississippi. And support
for community media and public journalism wont, by itself, create a democratic
public sphere. These are the priorities of most donor agencies and foundations, not
because they are proven to be effective, but because they are easier to fund, report on,
and manage. By contrast, the organic processes of civil society development are
messy and unpredictable, and lie outside the control of the foreign aid system or
philanthropy. As a result, even the more sophisticated efforts to nurture the ecosys-
tems of associational life tend to short-circuit vital questions of culture, values, and
politics, questions which do so much to determine the shape and functioning of civil
society in all of its disguises. In his review of civil society in Sub-Saharan Africa in
chapter 15, Ebenezer Obadare criticizes donor agencies for their tendency to substi-
tute NGO capacity-building for the development of a truly democratic political
culture, echoing Encarnacins broader reservations about the sequencing of civil
society assistance with political institutionalization. Leaving aside the question of
whether these deeper and more overtly political tasks are amenable to outside assis-
tance of any kind, these critics raise some very important points. Obviously context
is important: as Solava Ibrahim and David Hulme emphasize in chapter 31, effective
assistance to civil society poverty reduction efforts is not the same in India as it is in
Bangladesh, where a much weaker state invites a larger role for NGOs in delivering
basic social and economic services, ideally with some long-term impact on the claim-
making capacities of citizens. But as a general conclusion, the priorities of civil soci-
ety support have been inverted, with the least important factors receiving the most
attention (like the number of NGOs), and the most important factors often being
ignoredlike indigenous expressions of associational life and their connections
with political society, or at a more basic level, guarantees of human security.
In that case, what kinds of support would be more useful? In theoretical terms,
though drawn from a wide range of empirical experiences explored in this handbook,
the ideal would be a well articulated and inclusive ecosystem of locally supported
voluntary associations, matched by a strong and democratically accountable state,
conclusion 489
with a multiplicity of public spheres that enable full and equal participation in
setting the rules of every game. A society like this, in which different institutions
consolidate their relationships with each other at a pace appropriate to the context
around a gradually expanding economic base, would allow civil society to evolve
organically and sort through the problems that are often associated with external
assistance. Clearly, this type of society does not exist anywhere, particularly in low-
income countries, but by working backwards from this ideal it is easier to identify
what can usefully be done, and when.
First of all, there is a choice to do as a little as possible and simply let things take
their courseto do no harm, so to speak, in the knowledge that any intervention
runs the risk of producing consequences that are unforeseen. In a eld as compli-
cated and contingent as civil society, this is an attractive proposition, but it is unnec-
essarily restrictive because it ignores the fact that the preconditions for civil
societylike security, equality, and the space to organize and express opinions
are all things that can be inuenced without pushing associations in one direction
or another. Support to these preconditions is one of the most useful things that
donors can do, though clearly it does not produce the kind of short-term, quanti-
able results that are so popular with a new generation of philanthropists and inter-
national bureaucrats. Once equipped with these basic elements of human ourishing,
people can build whatever kind of civil society suits their interests and agendas. But
what else can be done?
In chapters 35 and 36, the contributors offer different perspectives on this
question from the viewpoint of philanthropy, which has always been an impor-
tant support to associations and the infrastructure of the public sphere, at least in
the United States. William Schambra and Krista Shaffer argue strongly for a mini-
malist approach in which philanthropic institutions support the self-organizing
processes that mark out civil society, especially at the local level, and stay away
from grand designs and the scientic analysis of root causes. Albert Ruesga
offers a modication of this approach, based on the recognition that local asso-
ciations struggle to deal with problems of a broader, structural nature and have
no monopoly over wisdom, so that philanthropy with and from the grassroots
can play an important role in strengthening and connecting movements and net-
works that are still driven by authentically popular initiatives. By building the
independent capacities of a broad base of citizens to engage with each other and
take collective action, philanthropy can support civil society to shape itself with a
little more help along the waynot in the short-term, highly targeted, pseudosci-
entic way that is favored by technocrats, but gradually, over time, and directed
by peoples own interpretations of root causes and the strategies that are required
to address them. Support for social groups who are disadvantaged in some way is
especially important, since this helps to level the playing eld for associational life
and public interaction. To take a non-Western example from Myanmar, local
organizations, with support from outside the country, have adopted a range of
lower-prole tactics after the suppression of street protests in 2009 which seek
to take advantage of small-scale political openings and build some of the
preconditions for longer term civil and political engagement, including the intro-
duction of new ideas and training in basic organizational skills. Over time, there
is some chance that these kinds of support will help to knit together a strong and
sustainable fabric of civic life and interaction.2
5. Conclusion
There are no nal words on civil society, because civil society is constantly being
reinterpreted and recreated. This is particularly true at a time when emerging
superpowers like China, India, and Brazil are entering and beginning to reshape
global debates about politics and economics, often from the perspective of their
own knowledge base and traditions which, in civil society terms, may differ mark-
edly from the trajectories of North America and Europe, from where most civil
society theory to date has emerged. In years to come, scholars and activists may be
learning about civil society from the experiences of Kerala, Bolivia, and South
Africa, and carrying these lessons back to California and London, as well as, one
hopes, the other way around. The civil society debate will certainly be all the richer
for it. Yet across very different contexts, as the contributions to this handbook
show, civil society is most valuable as a set of concepts and practices when it is
additional to, and not captured by, government and businesswhen it is seen and
supported as its own distinctive creation rather than as the consequence of state or
market failure.
As Ebenezer Obadare puts it in chapter 15, there has been much legitimate criti-
cism of civil society ideas and assistance in Africa and elsewhere, but there is also a
need to move beyond the backlash in order to focus on developing a body of
scholarship that can yield more useful insights. This is only possible if the debate is
pluralized and opened up to new and different perspectives. To do otherwiseto
attempt to fix civil society in the context of one particular experience or
interpretationwould be against the spirit of civil society itself. It is that chal-
lengeblending widespread differences into a geometry of human relations, as
John Ehrenberg puts it in chapter 2that will frame both the theory and practice
of civil society long into the future.
NOTES
1. Data from the General Social Survey and the DDB Needham Life Survey is available
at www.peterlevine.ws/mt/archives/2010/06/the-old-order-p.html, accessed August 22, 2010.
2. Seeds of Hope in Burma, reprinted in the Guardian Weekly from the Washington
Post, November 9, 2009 (no author given).
conclusion 491
REFERENCES

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Edwards, M., and S. Post (eds.). 2008. The Love that Does Justice: Spiritual Activism in
Dialogue with Social Science. Cleveland: Unlimited Love Press.
Minkoff, D. 2002. The Emergence of Hybrid Organizational Forms: Combining Identity-
Based Service-Provision and Political Action. Non-Prot and Voluntary Sector
Quarterly vol. 31(5), 377401.
Putnam, R. 2000. Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community. New
York: Simon & Schuster.
Index
Abed, F. H., 398 Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), 56, 57

accountability Algeria, 147, 149
of corporations, 435, 437 Alinsky, Saul, 5960, 63, 263
and New Public Management strategies, 48283 All-China Federation of Trades Unions
of nonprot sector, 3536, 45051 (ACFTU), 159
of public-private partnerships, 29495 All-China Federation of Women (ACWF), 160,
and social entrepreneurship, 84 166, 167
within UN, 100 Almond, G. A., 109, 110
achievements of civil society, 377438 Al Qaeda, 9, 410
overview, 1113 Altman, Nathanial, 279
and democracy, 37788 American Association of Retired Persons
and the market, 42838 (AARP), 112
and peace, 40414 American Civil Liberties Union, 3012
and poverty reduction, 391401 American Legion, 111
and power, 41625 American Library Association, 368
Ackerman, Peter, 366 Amnesty International, 212
Addams, Jane, 224, 228 amoral familism, 210
administrative decentralization, 44445, 446 Anabaptist religious tradition, 260
Adventist Relief and Development Agency, 265 anarchism, 408
advocacy groups. See also civil society ancient Greek thought, on civil society, 15, 17,
organizations (CSOs); specic groups 31112, 327, 328, 4056
boomerang pattern, 422 Anderson, Benedict, 315
growth of, 111 Anglo American (company), 434
lack of mass mobilization, 115 Anheier, H. K., 3132, 95
professional management of, 11213, 11516, 118 Annan, Ko, 211
representative functions of, 381 Annie E. Casey Foundation
role in poverty reduction, 39295 Rebuilding Communities Initiative, 461
use of human rights talk, 117 anomic societies, 210, 290. See also uncivil society
Afghanistan, 5, 50, 357, 45859 anti-apartheid movement (South Africa), 60, 237,
AFL-CIO, 111 240
Africa. See also specic countries anticorruption initiatives, 432
feminist groups, 6465 anti-debt coalition, 48
NGOs in, 187, 189 anti-Nike sweatshop campaigns, 43031
poverty reduction initiatives, 392 antipolitics viewpoint, 288
reciprocity among poor, 46364 Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines, U.S., 300,
African Americans. See also civil rights movement 301
black churches, 261 Arab Islamic Janjaweed militias, 350
closing of medical schools for, 448 Arato, A., 74, 123, 124, 240, 32728
and duty-based norms, 24849 Aravind eye hospitals (India), 84
ethnically based membership groups, 110 Arendt, Hannah, 23637, 238, 317, 319, 327, 350
free spaces concept, 33233, 334 Argentina, 122, 123, 124, 12627, 434
age and participation, 247 Aristotle
agricultural subsidies, 9899 on civil society, 1517
ahimsa (nonviolence), 279 on consequences of participation, 200
AIDS, civil society assistance, 33, 96, 97, 162, 165, on equality, 233
259, 424, 434, 47071 on good citizen, 405
Ai Weiwei, 16566 inuence on Montesquieu, 23
Alber, Jens, 32 Armenia, Republic of, 26566
494 index
Aronowitz, Stanley, 332 Barrett, G., 42223

Article 19 (organization), 354 Beck, U., 420
Arya Samaj movement (India), 173 Belgium, 211, 247, 249
ascriptive groups, 18586, 28687, 383. See also Beltrn, Cristina, 333
religion and religious institutions Benin, 187
Ashoka, 86 Benkler, Y., 341
Asia Foundation (U.S.), 300 Bentham, Jeremy, 316
Asian Development Bank, 96, 99 Berman, Sheri, 473, 475
Asset-Based Community Development Institute Berry, J. M., 118
(U.S.), 225 Better Life in Egypt, 153
asset-freezing orders, 300, 303, 304 Between Facts and Norms (Habermas), 32829
Associated Press, 355, 357 Beveridge, Albert Jeremiah, 460
associational life. See also civil society Big Society policies (UK), 5, 29, 30
organizations (CSOs) Black, Hugo, 359
decline of, 237 blogosphere, 341, 364
ecosystems and local conditions, 8, 482 Bob, C., 94
and equality, 23738 Bohman, James, 379
and experience of pluralism, 28687 Bolivia, 124125, 396
governmental impact on, 28596 Bolzendahl, C., 248, 251
and information technologies, 33746 Bosnia, 350
as intrinsic good, 172 Boston Foundation
and spirituality, 27577 Persistent Poverty Project, 462
state inuence on, 113, 21011 Bottom of the Pyramid movement, 81
associational speech, 28990 Bouabid Foundation (Morocco), 155
Association for Progressive Communications, 75 Bourdieu, P., 419
Association of Community Organizations for bourgeois civil society, 22
Reform Now (ACORN), 59, 62 Boussard, C., 189
Association of Turkish Industrialists and Boutros Ghali, Boutros, 412
Businessmen, 153 Boy Scouts of America, 224, 291
Atlanta Agreement, 432 Bradlee, Benjamin C., 351
Auditoras Articuladas (Colombia), 127 Brady, H., 364
Augustine, 18 Brahmo Samaj movement (India), 173
Australia brand vulnerability, 43032
formal compacts, 33 Brazil. See also specic organizations
as liberal welfare state regime, 31 civil society ideas, 122
nonprot sector, 35 Constitution (1988), 126
rise of for-prots, 36 corporations and sustainability standards, 434
shifts from cash assistance to nonprot and IMF transparency, 98
providers of services, 32 Landless Movement, 129
authoritarianism Management Councils, 126
in India, 17374 market-oriented NGOs, 124
in Iran, 149 participatory budget process, 22728
in Latin America, 123, 125 populist-development initiatives, 123
in Middle East, 147, 152, 154 strong leadership, effect on participation, 130
vs. communism, 139 Workers Party, 125, 126
autonomy of self, 7172, 429 and World Bank transparency, 98
Brest, Paul, 450
Breyer, Stephen, 367
Baker, Peter, 353 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 355
Bangladesh, 12, 391, 39293, 424 British Petroleum (BP), 431
Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee broadcast media, 317
(BRAC), 44, 86, 39293, 39799 Bronfman, Charles, 450, 451
Bank for International Settlements, 9697 Brooks, David, 233
BankTracker project (Investigative Reporting Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (U.S.), 334
Workshop), 357 Brown, D., 45
Barber, Benjamin, 324, 326, 327 Brown, Gordon, 303
Barney, D., 341, 345 Bryce, Lord, 109
Baron, Barnett, 300 Bunce, Valerie, 137, 138
Barr, A., 201 Burke, Edmund, 23, 211, 315
index 495
Burt, Martin, 88 child care vouchers, 36

Bush, George H. W., 210 child labor, 432
Bush, George W., 163, 352, 353, 468, 470, 47172 Childrens Defense Fund, 113, 115
business associations, 110, 111, 159, 16061, 476 Chile, 122, 127, 130
Byzantine Church, 1718 China. See also specic organizations
Beijing Olympic Games (2008), 16364
business standards, 43435
Callaghy, T. M., 185 censorship of Internet, 16566, 168, 319
Callamard, Agns, 354 civil society since 1978, 15968
Cameron, David, 30 Communist Party, 160, 165, 16667, 168, 305
Canada, 214, 251, 302, 356 Communist Youth League, 160
capacity-building by NGOs, 5, 37 Constitution (1982), 3056
capitalism diverse sources of identity, 204
and decline of the public, 1011 illegal organizations, 159
in Middle East, 472 information technologies, 16566
and neoliberalism, 128 market reform, 16162
overreliance on markets, 5 organization registration process, 16162, 163,
philanthrocapitalism, 481 16667
and social inequality, 23536, 241 poverty reduction initiatives, 392
turbo-capitalism, 73 rapid change and conicts, 204
Crdenas, C., 125 restrictions on space for civil society, 299, 3056
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 130 rise of ethical consumer in, 43435
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Sichuan province earthquake, 163, 165, 166, 306
Teaching, 44748 and social capital theory, 203
Carnegie Foundations, 44748 state enterprise reform, 16465
Carothers, T., 469, 474 state-owned enterprise, 16465, 43536
Carroll, J. W., 26061 suppression of protest, 160, 161
Carter, Hodding, 354 suspicion of charities/foreign NGOs, 167
Castro, J., 424 Tibet demonstrations (2008), 164
Catholic Church, 125, 260, 264 China Association for Science and
Catholic Relief Services, 265 Technology, 164
censorship by governments, 16566, 168, 319, 343, 345 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 160, 165,
Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, 276 16667, 168, 305
Center for Investigative Reporting, 35657 Chittister, Joan, 274
Center for Public Integrity, 352, 356, 358 Chowdhury, A.M.R., 398
Central Council of United Trade Unions Christ and Culture (Niebuhr), 260
(Iran), 149 Christian Coalition (U.S.), 112, 260
Central Europe Christianity, 1718, 25962, 33233. See also
impact of economic crisis (200810), 35 specic sects
centralized economic planning, 138 church-related associations. See religious groups
Ceres, 433 Cicero, 17, 23
Chabal, P., 184 Cities Alliance, 99
Chad, 350 citizen engagement, 5657, 42425. See also
chains of affectedness, 379 participation
Chandhoke, N., 71, 187, 418 citizen protest. See protest
charismatic hero model, 87 citizenship
charismatic impersonalism of Leninist civil society groups as school of, 29091
regimes, 13637 deliberative, 32425, 32730
Charities Act of 2006 (UK), 303 and diversity, 24649
charity. See also philanthropy duty-based, 24749, 252
and counterterrorism regulations in UK, 3024 and gender, 24952
critiques of, 45052 Latin American concepts of, 12627
and legislative initiatives, 29, 167 logic of congruence, 291, 292
neoliberal view of, 154 neoliberal concepts of, 20
Charity Commission (UK), 3024 and property, 20
Chateauwert, Melinda, 334 vs. associational membership, 286
Chatterjee, Partha, 179 citizen watchdog groups, 386
Chvez, Hugo, 124, 125, 436 civic association, 110, 22122, 223
checkbook democracy, 212 The Civic Culture (Almond and Verba), 109
496 index
civic knowledge and economic man, 1921

devaluation of, 11 Hegels idealism, 2223, 172, 312, 314, 327
as generated by civil society, 36872 Kants formalism, 21, 371
and leadership skills, 36566 Marxs democratization, 2223, 240, 258, 259,
preservation of knowledge commons, 36668 264, 315, 331
and role of civil society, 36265, 36768 organized commonwealth, 1518
as space of civil society, 36272 and peace-building, 4057
civicness, interaction with civility, 22021, 22229 and public sphere, 31121, 328
civic organizing, 59 radical vs. neo-liberal viewpoints, 56
civic renewal philanthropy, 45152 resurgence during 2000s, 6
civic skills, 364, 365 Smiths views, 18, 2022, 313, 314
civil disobedience, 217, 370. See also protest transition to modernity, 1819
civility, 22226 civil society norms, 197280. See also specic
and civic associations, 22021 norms
Enlightenment viewpoint on, 406 overview, 810
and functional need for specialized civility, 22030
knowledge, 22324 diversity, 24553, 481
and group social homogeneity, 224 equality, 23242
and interaction with civicness, 22021, 22229 religion, 25767
as norm of civil society, 22030 social capital, 197205
Tocquevilles viewpoint on, 22122 spirituality, 27080
and use of anger, 22930 and uncivil society, 20918
civil liberties civil society organizations (CSOs). See also
in democratic states, 29899 associational life; specic organizations and
and overregulation in U.S., 299302 countries
and public communication, 319 advancement of equality as goal of, 23738
quasi-independent regulation in UK, 3024 civil regulation of corporations, 43033, 438n1
restrictions in China, 299, 3056 constitutive media of, 38384
restrictions in Vietnam, 299, 307 democracy within, 38085
and spaces of civil society, 298308 democratic associational ecology, 38588
civil regulation of markets, 43038, 438n1 as oppositional to democracy, 386, 387
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (U.S.), 113 poverty reduction, 2023
civil rights movement (U.S.), 61, 217, 218n2, provision of direct services by, 368
23738, 333, 459 and public communication, 316
civil society, denitions of, 4, 13, 71, 245, 377, and social capital language, 205
4056, 41619. See also specic aspects and socialist displacement of CSOs in, 149
theories use of term, 43
civil society, forms of, 29103. See also specic and voluntariness, 38283
forms civil society spaces, 285372
overview, 78 overview, 1011
global civil society, 93103 and civic knowledge, 36272
grassroots associations, 5566 and civil liberties, 298308
nongovernmental development organizations and digital age, 33746
(NGDOs), 4252 government, 28596
nonprot sector, 2938 and public journalism, 34959
social entrepreneurship, 8088 public sphere, 31121
social movements, 58, 6877 public work, 32434
Civil Society and Political Theory (Cohen and civil society studies
Arato), 32728 as applicable to forms of social
civil society assistance, 44372. See also civil organization, 142
society organizations (CSOs); specic types comparison to social movement studies, 6877
of assistance consensual issues, 70
and democracy-promotion, 46877 European tradition, 70
grassroots philanthropy, 45565 North American tradition, 70
infrastructure for, 47072 as regime type distinction, 14243
institutional philanthropy, 44352 as western concept, 142
civil society ideas, history of class cleavage, 73
overview, 47 climate management, 433, 437
and associations, 2325 Clinton, Bill, 352, 470, 477n1
index 497
Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 470, 472 conict

Coates,B., 393 associational management of, 384
Coca Cola Company, 431 and associational segregation, 211
Coelho, K., 418 avoidance of in empowerment projects, 22223
coercion controlled conict strategy, 59
freedom from, 407 and democratic debate, 22930
in Hobbess civil society, 19 due to rapid change, 2045
in Kants civil society, 21 expression of in mutual qualication
in Lockes civil society, 20 programs, 227
and neoliberal structural adjustment, 184 and social movement studies, 6973
by state/government, 286, 291, 363 study on Hindu/Muslim conicts, 410
Coff, H., 248, 251 Confucian model, 363
Cohen, J., 74, 123, 240, 32728 Congress Party (India), 173
Colas, D., 404 conscientization programs, 421
Cold War era, 47, 146, 160, 288, 470 Conselhos Gestores de Polticas Pblicas
Coleman, J., 198 (Brazil), 128
collective action, 172, 200 consensus movements, 70
Colombia, 122, 124, 12627 Conservative Party (UK), 5
Color Revolutions, 163, 307, 340 conservatism, 5, 112, 26263, 470
Comaroff, Jean, 185, 187 Constitution
Comaroff, John, 185, 187 of Brazil, 126
Combined Federal Campaign (CFC, U.S.), 3012 of China, 3056
Committee to Democratize Information of U.S., 22
Technology (CDI, Brazil), 84 constitutive media of associations, 38384
Common Cause, 113 consumer activism, 226
common goods, 387 consumer choice and shift to NPM strategies, 33, 36
common pool resources, 200, 334 consumerism
common power, 1819 as choice without consequence, 326
commons, 326, 334 and male lost identity, 326
commonwealth ideals, 32627, 329, 33334 within marriage, 326
communication infrastructure policy, 34446 vs. public work, 32425, 327
communism, 24041. See also Europe, post- Consumers International, 345
communist contentious politics concept, 7071
Communist Party, 13638, 305 controlled conict strategy, 59
Communist Tudeh Party (Iran), 149 convergence with mutual autonomy, 127
Communist Youth League (CYL), 160 convergent antagonism, 127
community-based organizing, 59 Cooley, Charles Horton, 319
Community Foundation for Northern cooperative commonwealth. See commonwealth
Ireland, 46061 ideals
Community Interest Companies (UK), 84, 85, 201 cooperatives, 408
community media, 11 Copenhagen climate talks (2010), 433, 437
community organizing groups Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social
collective action, 60 Services (Egypt), 151
and democratic pluralism, 5960 copyright law (U.S.), 367
education approach to, 60 Cornwall, A., 418
focus on public issues, 58 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
as subset of SCOs, 61 strategies, 81
use of Alinsky model, 5960, 63 Corporation for National and Community
use of Smock model, 5960 Service, U.S., 30
compacts corporations. See also specic corporations
between government and nonprots, 33, 37 brand vulnerability, 43032
of open collaboration, 2034 civil regulation, 43038, 438n1
in South Africa, 434 collection of consumer data, 345
comparative communism studies, 13637 community consultation mechanisms, 97
compassionate conservatism, 5, 470 decline of U.S. news media, 35456
Compassion International, 265 environmental standard compliance, 432
CompassPoint survey, 27576 ethos of privatization, 430
competitive contracting, 33, 293 funding of voluntary associations, 212
Comunidade Solidria (Brazil), 130 inuence over regulatory process in U.S., 433
498 index
corporations (continued ) and grassroots associations, 56

and interaction of civicness and civility, 226 illiberal democracy, 210
ownership of communication incivility and debate, 22930
infrastructure, 344 individual inuence, 37980
social responsibility efforts, 81, 226 normative denitions of, 37880
corporatist welfare state regimes, 31 oppositional CSOs, 386, 387
Correa, Rafael, 125 participation in governance, 99100, 12628
corruption, 432 as prerequisite in comparative studies of civil
Costa Rica, 65 society, 14244
counterterrorism law/policy. See also Bush, and religious pluralism, 26263
George W. Rosenblums key virtues of, 233
Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines, U.S., 300, 301 thin democracy, 324
East Turkestan Islamic Movement, 167 Tilly on insulation from categorical
impact on civil liberties in U.S., 299302 inequality, 233
implications for NGDOs, 4950 Democracy in America (Tocqueville), 174, 241, 337, 443
quasi-independent regulation in UK, 3024 democratic associational ecology, 38588
suspicion of charities/foreign NGOs, 163 balanced mix of associations, 386
terrorism watch lists, 299302 checks on power, 38687
Creative Commons website, 341 distributions of attachments, 38788
creative destruction, in entrepreneurship, 84 individual attachments, 387
criminality for a cause, 217 Deng Xiaoping, 160, 161
crises, responses to. See also economic recessions; Denmark, 31, 32, 34
specic crises Department for International Development
bonds of mutual sacrice, 48485 (DFID), 266
function of spiritual activism, 27273, 27879 development NGOs. See nongovernmental
as historical feature of civil society, 184 development organizations (NGDOs)
by religious groups, 259 devolution, 5, 293
by uncivil society organizations, 179 Dewey, John, 10, 320, 36970
Croly, Herbert, 446 Diani, M., 69
cross-border activism. See global civil society Diderot, 369
cross-class federations, decline of, 10919, 482 digital age and information technologies. See also
Cuba, 30 Internet
and awareness of social entrepreneurship
opportunities, 82
Dalai Lama, 431 and communication policies, 338, 34446
Dalton, R. J., 248 critiques of, 34144
Damascus Chamber of Commerce, 149 digital rights management, 342
David, R., 393 impact of technologies, 33841
Davis, R. S., 117 and increased engagement, 11
deCerteau, Michel, 341 infrastructure controls, 344
Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, UN, 96 open-source software movement, 341
decolonization, in Middle East, 149 and spaces of civil society, 33746
de-commodication, 31 tactical media, 340
Decree on Associations (Vietnam, 2003), 307 and transnationalization of social
de-facing power, 41718 movements, 75
Dekker, Paul, 226 and 24/7 journalism, 353
Delli Carpini, M., 364 wireless adhocracies, 340
democracy. See also state/government; specic digital divide, 343
countries digital rights management (DRM), 342
and all-affected principle, 37880, 388 directive inuence, of individual, 379
Barber on thin democracy, 324 directly exercised, individual inuence, 37980
checkbook democracy, 212 disaster relief, 84
within CSOs, 38085 discomfort, and democratic debate, 22930
democratic associational ecology, 38588 discrimination vs. economic inequality, 23334
and diversity, 24553, 320 diversity
electoral democracies worldwide, 37780 and citizenship, 24649
emergence of and nonprots, 29 and gender, 24952
Fraser on multiple public sphere and, 23839 as norm of civil society, 24553, 481
in global civil society, 1012 and openness to perplexity, 224
index 499
Doherty, William, 326 Elias, Norberto, 406, 407

domestic violence as common concern, 239 elites and scientic philanthropy, 44549
dominant vs. subordinate groups, 278 El Sistema program (Venezuela), 228
Durkheim, Emile, 258 Elsner, Martin, 406
Dworkin, R., 23435 employment and participation, 250
empowered deliberative democracy (EDD), 329
empowerment projects, 22225
Eastern Europe enactments of citizenship, Scholte on, 9596
homogenization effect of communism, 13638 enclave deliberation and intolerance, 383
and impact of economic crisis (200810), 35 The End of Charity (Hunter), 45051
post-communist civil society, 13444 The End of History (Fukuyama), 49
East Germany, former, 138 energy sector, 436
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 43 Enlightenment ideas, 148, 369, 404, 406
economic development, 84, 200201. See also Enriques Journey (Nazario), 464
nongovernmental development Enterprise Income Tax Law of 2008 (China), 167
organizations (NGDOs) environment
economic globalization, 73. See also climate management, 433
neoliberalism Copenhagen climate talks (2010), 433, 437
economic inequality corporate compliance with standards, 432
and grassroots associations, 58 movements, 72, 217
increase of, 57, 241 planning/management, 84
vs. racial discrimination, 233 environmental associations, 112
economic man concept, theorists on, 1921 equality. See also inequality
economic recessions and associational life, 23738
of 199091, 83 denitions of, 23234
of 20082010, 35, 83, 393, 43233 and goals of civil society, 23537
economics, dominant role of, 56 and good society, 24041
Ecuador, 124, 125, 12627 as norm of civil society, 23242
Edelman, Marian Wright, 113 and public sphere, 23840
education radical equality, 23441
Carnegie Foundation contribution to, 447 Equator Principles, 431, 432
and participation in U.S., 248 Esping-Andersen, G., 31, 34
policies in market-based societies, 11 Espinosa, K., 201
school choice, 292 Estlund, Cynthia, 330
and social entrepreneurship, 84 ethical consumers, 81
striving culture in higher education, 326 Ethical Trading Initiative, 431
and transfer of civic knowledge, 368 Ethiopia, 186
Edwards, M., 234, 236, 280, 474 ethnic heterogeneity, 409
egalitarians, on inequality, 23334 Europe. See also specic countries
Egypt. See also specic organizations and Albers social service model, 32
civil society, history of, 148 anticommunist movements, 217
CSOs in, 147 anti-immigrant/Muslim groups, 21415
Ibn Khaldun Center, 147 civil society vs. barbarians of new
inuence of blogosphere, 155, 364 worlds, 4067
labor strikes, 151 class-based differences in participation, 248
labor unions, 149, 150 corporatism, 210
lawyers syndicate, 14849 environmental issues protests, 217
Muslim Brotherhood, 149, 15051, 152, 473 freedoms of association/speech/religion, 214
nonprot sector, 30 impact of economic crisis (200810), 35
Partners in Development, 155 income level and participation, 247
poverty levels, 155 social rights issues, 73
public sphere, history of, 154 urban sociability, history of, 317
Egyptian Center for Economic Studies, 153 WISEs, 84
Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, 153 Europe, post-communist, 13444. See also specic
Ekeh, P. P., 18586 countries
electoral democracies, 37780 charismatic impersonalism of Leninist
electronic communication. See digital age and regimes, 13637
information technologies; social media friendship networks, 14041
Eley, G., 237 homogenization effect of communism, 13638
500 index
Europe, post-communist (continued ) Forest Stewardship Council, 434

low membership in voluntary for-prot providers, 36
associations, 13536, 13942, 14344 Foucault, M., 41718, 421
and membership in EU, 142 foundations. See institutional philanthropy;
mistrust of formal organizations, 13940 specic foundations
party-state control of public sphere, 13740 Fourth World Conference for Women
and private sphere, 138, 14041 (1995), 166
social legacy of communism, 13942 France, 23, 22627
European Charter of Local Self- franchise state, 397
Government, 103n8 Frank Buttle Trust (UK), 458
European Initiative for Democracy and Human Franklin, Benjamin, 367
Rights (EIDHR), 471 Fraser, Nancy, 233, 23839
European Social Forum, 240 fraternal groups, 110
European Union (EU) Fraternal Order of Eagles, 111
blocking of WTO negotiations, 9899 Freedom House, 378
CSOs as representatives, 381 free spaces concept, 33134
European Initiative for Democracy and Human Freire, Paulo, 60, 421
Rights, 471 French Encyclopedia of 17511772, 369
funding and terrorist watch lists, 301 French Revolution, 23
importance of, 380 Friends of Labourers Society (India), 173
membership of post-communist countries, 142 Fukuyama, F., 49, 201
Peace and Reconciliation Program, 46061 Fundacin Paraguaya, 88
and political participation, 5, 29 Fung, A., 325, 329
subsidiarity, 103n8
evangelical Christians, in U.S., 112, 26061
Evans, Sara, 332 Galeotti, A. E., 239
experts, reliance on, 448 Galilei, Galileo, 349
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Galston, William, 233, 23536
(EITI), 431, 432 Gandhi, Indira, 173
Gandhi, Mahatma, 173, 280, 366
Gandhian organizations, and social uplift
Fafchamps, M., 201 programs, 173
Fair Labour Association, 431 Ganz, Marshall, 366
Fair Trade Foundation, 88 Gap, 432
Fair Trade movement, 86 Gardner, John, 113
faith-based organizations, 59, 293, 392. See also Gaventa, J., 42223
religion and religious institutions Gaza Strip, 146
Faludi, Susan, 326 G8 (Group of Eight), 1023, 103n9
Falun Gong, 164, 166 Gellner, Ernest, 4078, 409
Farm Bureau Federation, 111 gender. See also feminism
Farmer Voice project, 84 and diversity in participation, 24952
Federation of Trade Unions (Egypt), 149 exclusion in public sphere based on, 318
fees and social origins theory, 32 and Financing for Development
fellowship associations, in U.S., 11011 negotiations, 99
feminism, 59, 6465, 72, 239, 422. See also gender and nonprot sector leadership, 238
Feminist Transformation Watch (FTW), 6465 participation gaps, 24553
Ferguson, Adam, 20, 406 socialization and participation, 250, 252
feudalism, 22 General Federation of Womens Clubs (U.S.), 111
Fez Festival of Sacred Music, 95 genocide, 350
Fiji, 215 Genro, Tarso, 127
Financing for Development, UN, 99 Georgia (country), 163
Flexner Report (Carnegie), 44748 Gerber, A. S., 115
Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres (FCAM), 461 The German Ideology (Marx), 331
Fondo de Solidaridad y Inversin Social Germany
(FOSIS), 130 commercial hospitals, 36
Food for the Hungry, 265 as corporatist welfare state regime, 31
Ford Foundation, 301, 449, 471, 475 green social movement, 384
foreign aid, 43, 4647, 5052, 483 Nazi use of civil society, 88, 238, 409, 476
Forest, Robert de, 447 nonprot sector, 35
index 501
and social origins theory on nonprot denition of civil society, 10, 179, 237,
regimes, 32 417, 418
social services provision, 32 hegemonic culture, 125, 315, 421
Weimar Republic, 9, 378, 409, 475 Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 171
GI Bill of 1944 (U.S.), 111, 485 grassroots associations, 5566
Gibson, William, 339 and citizen engagement, 5657
Girl Scouts of America, 57 power of community organizing, 5860
giving circles, 464 practice of, 5658
Global Alliance for Vaccines Initiative, 431 social change organizations, 6065
Global Alliance for Workers and theories of, 5556
Communities, 432 Grassroots Grantmakers, 457, 460
Global Campaign Against Poverty, 95 grassroots philanthropy, 45565
Global Campaign for Secure Tenure, 394 denitions of, 45657
global civil society, 93103 effectiveness of, 465
accountability, 100101 importance of, 45658
denitions of, 9395 philanthropy from grassroots, 457, 46364
democracy, 1012 philanthropy to grassroots, 456, 45860
and global governance, 9597 philanthropy with grassroots, 45657, 46063
participation, 99100 Great Britain. See United Kingdom
transnationalization of social movements, 75 Greater New Orleans Foundations Community
transparency, 9899 IMPACT Program, 459
global connectedness. See digital age and Great Society programs (U.S.), 449, 451
information technologies; Internet The Great Transformation (Polanyi), 5
Global Consumer Dialog on Access to Knowledge Green, D. P., 115
and Communication Issues, 345 Green Dam Youth Escort censorship software
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) (China), 16566
survey, 8586 Greenpeace, 95, 212, 430
Global Fund for Malaria, Tuberculosis, and Grey Areas project (Ford Foundation), 449
HIV/AIDS, 96, 97 Guatemala, 65, 413
global governance, 9597, 213 Gulf of Tonkin resolution (1964), 351
Global Integrity, 355
Global Investigative Journalism Network, 358
globalization. See economic globalization Habermas, Jrgen. See also public sphere
global North. See also global South administrative power, 329
access to information, 101 denition of lifeworld, 370
and CSOs in Middle East, 151, 15354 deliberative forum, 21617
and NGDOs as intermediaries, 4344 effects of consumerism, 327
perception of sustainability standards, 43334 Between Facts and Norms, 32829
Global 100, 434 public opinion, 31920, 329, 370, 371
global public culture, 317 public sphere, 10, 126, 218n1, 23839, 318, 324,
Global Reporting Initiative, 434 325, 32829, 417, 48586
global South. See also global North social movements, 72
aid dependency, 4647 state authority, 218n1
economic growth and civil regulation, strict separation from state, 123, 127
43435 The Structural Transformation of the Public
lack of grassroots participation, 101 Sphere, 171, 320, 328
limitations on role of civil society, 437 welfare state, 7374
and NGDOs, 4344, 51 habits of association, universality of, 186
NGO advocacy campaigns, 393 habitus, concept of, 419
perception of sustainability standards, Hackney Community Transport (HCT), 85
43334 Hagopian, Frances, 324
global war on terror. See counterterrorism Handlin, Mary, 326
law/policy Handlin, Oscar, 326
Goldfarb, J., 49 Hann, Chris, 192n2
good society, civil society as, 18788, 212, 21516, Haraway, Donna, 339
24041, 27980 Harbeson, J. W., 186
Google, 168, 369 Harding, R., 86
Grameen Bank, 30, 392 Harlem Childrens Zone (U.S.), 30
Gramsci, Antonio Harvey, Hal, 450
502 index
Haskell, Thomas, 446 diverse sources of identity, 204

hate groups, 224 forging of networks, 176, 17778
Haugaard, M., 419 freedom of information movement, 424
Havel, Vclav, 138, 469 Gandhian organizations, 173
Hayward, C. R., 41718 gender/race/ethnic bias in nonprot sector, 238
Hegel, G.W.F. Kishore Bharti, 174
Burgerliche Gesellschaft, 172 labor unions, 173
civil society, 2223, 312 Narmada Bachao Andolan movement, 175
exclusion of family, 327 NGOs, 44, 175
function of state, 314 noncivil organizations, 178
hegemonic neoliberalism. See neoliberalism nonprot sector, 30, 174
Held, D., 422 number of social actions groups in, 174
Helem CSO (Lebanon), 153 poor and political society space, 17980
Hess, C., 366 professional management in civil
hidden power, 42021 society, 17476
higher education, 11, 326. See also education Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), 17879
Highlander Institute (U.S.), 238 religious reform movements, 173, 178
Hill, Walter B., 114 Self-Respect Movement, 173
Hindman, M., 341 sons of the soil movements, 215
Hindu Mahasabha (India), 173 study on Hindu/Muslim conicts, 410
HispanicMoslems.com, 370 Supreme Court decisions, 175
Histadrut trade union (Israel), 150 worker social protection, 176
HIV/AIDS. See AIDS, civil society assistance Indigenous Peoples, UN Declaration on, 96
Hobbes, Thomas, 1819 individual inuence, 37980
Hobsbawm, E. J., 17980 individualism, 44445, 446
Hobson, B., 251 Indonesia, 6465, 2012, 203, 204
homogeneity, liabilities of, 8, 482 Industrial Areas Foundation, 59, 263
homogenization effect of communism, 13638 Indymedia, 75
Honduras, 65 inequality. See also equality
Hooghe, M., 249 correlations to violence, 410
housing vouchers, 36 due to bourgeois civil society, 22
Howard, M.M., 135 economic inequality, 57, 58, 233, 241
Hu Jia, 164 egalitarians on, 23334
Hulme, D., 39293 and inhibition of voluntary activity, 24
human capital, use of term, 199 and levels of violence, 410
Human Development Report, UN, 464 social inequality and capitalism, 23536, 241
human rights, 155, 214, 437, 438 information, communication, and technology
Human Rights Commission, 214 resources (ICTs), 33738. See also digital age
Human Rights Watch, 212, 355 and information technologies
Hume, David, 200, 31415 information technologies. See digital age and
Hungary, 3435, 137 information technologies
Hunter, David, 45051 Inglehart, R., 251
hyper-individualism, in market-based societies, 11 innovation and social entrepreneurship, 8384, 482
institutional philanthropy, 44352
professionalization and distance from
Ibn Khaldun Center (Egypt), 147 citizens, 45051
identity-based solidarity groups, 9596 relations with government, 44950
identity goods, 385 rise of scientic philanthropy, 44548
illiberal democracy, 210 Tocqueville on, 44345
immigrants, 318, 333 instrumental coalitions, 69
Income Generation for Vulnerable Group intellectual property law, 345
Development Program (BRAC), 398 International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, 48, 95
India. See also specic organizations International Consortium of Investigative
Aravind eye hospitals, 84 Journalism, 358
Arya Samaj movement, 173 International Crisis Group, 355
associational segregation, 211 international labor movement, 432
civil society, 17181 International Labor Organization (ILO), 432
corporations and sustainability standards, 434 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 94, 97, 98, 187
development models, 174 international NGDOs (INDGOs), 44, 45, 48, 94
index 503
International Organization for Standardization and Palestinians, 146

(ISO), 434 public sphere, history of, 155
International Youth Foundation, 432 Italy, 85, 210
Internet. See also digital age and information It Takes a Village (Clinton), 470
technologies; specic websites
Chinese censorship of, 16566, 319
corporate interference with, 345 Japan, 32, 211
Google search engine, 369 Jefferson, Thomas, 366
international governance of, 99100 Jewish Agency for Israel, 150
and Middle East protests, 151, 155 Johnson, Lyndon, 351, 449
number of Chinese users, 165 Jordan, 147, 149, 154, 473
open-access websites, 95 journalism, 353, 35456. See also public journalism
and public journalism, 35658 Jowitt, Ken, 13637, 138
social media, 82, 33941, 35354 Jubilee Debt Relief campaigns, 95
state regulation of communication jury service, 365
infrastructure, 344, 345 Just Associates (U.S.), 64
and transnationalization of social justice, as implicit in love, 27980
movements, 75
UN Internet Governance Forum, 345
World Bank study on effects on rural Kabeer, N., 424
youth, 326 Kadeer, Rebiya, 167
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Kahn, Charlotte, 462
Numbers, 96, 97 Kaiser Health News, 355
Internet Governance Forum (IGF), 97, 345 Kamali, Masoud, 364
Interpal, 303 Kant, Immanuel, 21, 371
Investigative News Network, 358 Karstedt, S., 41011
Investigative Reporting Workshop, 356, 357 Keane, J., 73
invisible hand concept, 21, 314, 31516 Keck, M. E., 422
invisible power, 42021 Keeter, S., 364
involuntary organizations, 18586, 28687, 383 Keshev (Israel), 155
Iran Khatami, Mohammad, 149
civil society, history of, 148 KidsVoting USA, 36465
CSOs in, 149, 150, 15253 Kilmurray, A., 461
elections, 146 Kim, H., 238
public sphere, history of, 155 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 279, 333, 366, 484, 485
revolution (2009), 151 kinship, ideology of, 18586, 201
use of social media in protest, 340 Kishore Bharti (India), 174
Iraq knowledge commons, 36768
CSOs in, 147 Korten, D., 45
Ministry of Civil Society, 468, 48788 Kovach, Bill, 359
NGDOs and donor geo-priorities, 50 Kretzmann, J. P., 56
public sphere, history of, 154, 155 Kripalu, Swami, 272
tribal voting in elections (2010), 237 Krishna, A., 201
Iraq war Kuhn, T., 46162
based on erroneous information, 352 Ku Klux Klan, 88, 224, 225
Bush democracy-promotion, 47172 Kunreuther, F., 238
global protests against, 95 Kuwait, 147
government paid news consultants, 35253 Kyrgyzstan, 163
online posting of contractors, 357
Iron Rule motto (Alinsky), 263
Islam labor unions
Muslims in western societies, 21415, 300, 410 absence/repression of in Middle East, 149, 150, 473
role of ulama, 36364 in Brazil, 437
waqfs (Islamic philanthropy), 148, 151 decline of, 63, 117
ISO social responsibility standard (SR in Egypt, 149, 150
26000), 434 in India, 173
Israel involuntary aspects of, 383
CSOs in, 147, 150, 152, 15354 in Israel, 150
Keshev, 155 in Lebanon, 150
504 index
labor unions (continued) local empowerment, 5, 61, 82. See also grassroots
in Morocco, 150 associations
as part of nonprot sector, 34, 74 Locke, John, 18, 1920, 21, 313
state-controlled, 150 logic of congruence, and citizenship, 291, 292
in Sweden, 34 Lomasky, Loren, 36263
in Tunisia, 150 London subway bombings (UK), 355, 369
in Turkey, 150 L3C corporations, 84, 85
in U.S., 63, 11718, 237 Lukes, Steven, 417, 420
Lafarge (company), 431 Lula da Silva, Luiz Igncio, 130, 431, 437
Lagemann, E. C., 448 Lutheran Social Services, 265
Lamb, Harriet, 88 Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (U.S.), 459
Landless Movement (MST), 129
Las Petateras group, 64
Latin America. See also specic countries Maastricht, Treaty of, 103n8
anti-dependency views, 46 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 18, 313
citizenship, concepts of, 12627 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 408
civil society in, 12231 Madison, James, 24
decline of social rights, 130 Madsen, Richard, 363
gender/race/ethnic bias in nonprot sector, 238 Mahmoud, M., 398
neoliberalism in, 12830, 483 Mahmud, S., 424
participatory budget process, 126, 127, 22728 mainstream vs. margin groups, 278
participatory democracy in, 12628 majoritarian theorists, 23334
and social movements, 12325, 129 Making Democracy Work (Putnam), 201
Law of National Dialogue (Bolivia), 392, 396 The Making of the English Working Class
Law on Donations to Public Welfare Undertakings (Thompson), 332
(China, 1999), 167 Mamdani, Mahmood, 185, 18990
lawyers syndicate (Egypt), 14849 Mandeville, Bernard de, 313
leadership Mann, Michael, 4089
Center for Contemplative Mind in Society Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of
study on, 276 Sleeping Car Porters (Chateauwert), 334
CompassPoint survey on, 27576 Marine Stewardship Council, 84, 431
development among urban poor, 394 market
development programs for, 27677 and associational strategic goals, 384
League of Women Voters, 110 business case thought, 43536
Lebanese Union of the Physically and capitalist overreliance on, 5
Handicapped, 151 civil regulation, 43038, 438n1
Lebanon, 9, 148, 149, 15051, 154 civil society inuences on, 42830
Lederach, John Paul, 412 emerging economy businesses, 43335
Lee, Nicole, 276 and historical concepts of civil society, 313
Lefebvre, Henri, 6364 and neoliberalism, 6, 128, 130
left party ideology, 11718, 12325, 131 and public sphere, 313, 316
Leninist regimes, 13637 and social entrepreneurship, 8385
LEXIS/NEXIS, 367 and social inequality, 23536
Liberal Democratic parties (UK), 5 strategic effects of civil society on, 43031,
liberalism, 23335, 408, 409 43738
liberal peace, 41112 and sustainability standards, 43334
liberal welfare state regimes, 3132 systemic effects of civil society on, 428, 43738
libraries, 367 tactical effects of civil society on, 428, 43738
Libya, 147, 149 Marx, Karl, 2223, 258, 259, 264, 315, 331
Liebling, A. J., 359 Marxism, demise of, 240
Light, Paul, 32930 Maryland Association of Nonprots (U.S.), 33
Lincoln, Abraham, 349 Massey, D., 201
Lindholm, M., 251 maternal commonwealth. See commonwealth
Lippman, Walter, 320 ideals
Lipschutz, R., 418 Matsuda, M. J., 235
Liss, Jon, 63 Mattelart, A., 341
Livesey, J., 18788 May, C. T., 341, 343
local community initiatives. See grassroots Mbembe, A., 191
associations McCarthy, J. D., 11617
index 505
McCarthyism, 29899 mutualism, 408

McChesney, Robert, 355 mutual qualication programs, 22627
McDonalds, 43132 Muwatin (Palestinian Territories), 155
McGrew, A., 422 Myanmar, 30
McKinney, W., 26061 mysticism, 25960
McKnight, John, 56, 451
McVeigh, Timothy, 410
Medard, Jean-Francois, 186 Narayan, J. P., 173
media, 317, 340, 35456 Narmada Bachao Andolan movement
Medicaid program, 36 (India), 175
Melucci, A., 72 National Bureau of Economic Research
men, in nonprot sector leadership, 238 (U.S.), 448
Mesas de Concertacin (Peru), 127 National Council of Voluntary Organizations
Mexico (NCVO) (UK), 33, 304
civil society ideas, 122 National Education Association (U.S.), 112
Feminist Transformation Watch in, 65 National Endowment for Democracy (NED), 470,
and IMF transparency, 98 476
populist-development initiatives, 123 National Public Radio (U.S.), 355
self-management councils, 128 National Rie Association (U.S.), 112
and World Bank transparency, 98 National Right to Life Committee (U.S.), 112
Zapatista rebellion, 217 national security, 319
Meyer, Philip, 355 National Self-Service Alliance (India), 178
Michnik, Adam, 469 National Socialist Party (Germany), 88, 238,
microcredit groups, 30 409, 476
Middle East. See also specic countries Natura, 434
civil society in, 14656 Natural Resources Defense Council, 355
countries of, 156n1 Nazario, Sonia, 464
elections, 146 neoliberalism. See also economic globalization
public sphere, history of, 15456 charity, 154
state-led industrialization, 47273 citizenship, concepts of, 20, 130
state-owned enterprise, 436 coercion and structural adjustment, 184
U.S. foreign policy in, 5 and CSOs in Middle East, 15253
Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), 47172 decline of shared decision making
Mill, John Stewart, 365 under, 12829
Millennium Development Goals, UN, 50, 51, in Latin America, 12830, 483
100, 102 market, 6, 128, 130
Miller, D. E., 264 on peace-building, 41112
Miller, Jean Baker, 278 on role of civil society, 12830
Milner, Henry, 363 and shift to NPM strategies, 82
Mindell, Arthur, 278 and universal rights, 130
Ministry of Civil Society (Iraq), 468, 48788 vs. radical viewpoint, 56
Mitlin, D., 395, 397 and weakening of state-based approaches to
Mitzal, B., 71 common good, 418, 430
modular man, 4078 World Social Forum as alternative to, 437
Mogaladi, J., 397 neo-Tocquevillians, 216, 23334, 274, 486. See also
Molenaers, N., 396 specic theorists
Money Well Spent (Brest and Harvey), 450 Nestle, 43132
Montesquieu, 23, 314 Netherlands, 30, 31, 32, 211, 22627
Moore, Barrington, 31 New Deal (U.S.), 449
Morales, Evo, 125 new humanitarianism, 51
moral reasoning, 363, 365, 37172 The New Liberalism (Berry), 118
Morocco, 147, 149, 150, 154, 155 new localism, 82
Mueller, M. L., 344, 346 New Organizing Institute (NOI), 340
multicultural identity politics, 233 New Public Management (NPM)
Multilateral Development Banks, 97 and accountability, 48283
Mumford, Lewis, 317, 342 in Brazil, 129
Muskie, Edmund, 351 and consumer choice, 36
Muslims, 21415, 300, 410 and neoliberalism during 1980s, 82
Mustapha, A. R., 185, 189 of nonprot sector, 3335, 482
506 index
news media crisis and decline of public professionalization of, 11213, 11516, 118,
sphere, 35456 17476, 429, 455
New Zealand, 31, 32, 35, 37 role in poverty reduction, 392401
NGDO-ism. See nongovernmental development strategic managerialism of, 192n2
organizations (NGDOs) in sub-Saharan Africa, 19091
Nicaragua, 65 as synonymous with civil society, 47475
Nichols, John, 355 and UN formation, 43
Niebuhr, H. Richard, 260 use of PRSP processes, 396
Nigeria, 187, 215, 432 as world conscience, 213
Nike, 43032 nonprot journalism, 355, 357
Nischengesellschaft (niche society), 138 nonprot organizations (NPOs), 43
Nixon, Richard, 351 nonprot sector. See also specic countries and
nondomination, 379 organizations
Non-Formal Primary Education program accountability and performance
(NFPE), 398 demands, 3536, 45051
nongovernmental development organizations advocacy role, 37
(NGDOs), 4252 capacity building within, 37
during 1970s, 4547 competition for block grants, 293
during 1980s, 4547 competition with for-prot
during 1990s, 48, 49 organizations, 3638
during 2000s, 4850 exclusion from nonprot leadership, 238
and caritas mentality, 46 explanation of, 3031
characteristics of, 4445, 52n3 faith-based organizations, 265
and civil society, 4345 gender/race/ethnic bias in, 238
and democratization, 49 government funding of, 29193
and donor geo-priorities, 50 and impact of economic crisis (200810), 35
and foreign aid system, 43, 483 impact of restrictions due to terrorism
function of, 4344 threat, 299302
funding levels of, 44 labor unions, 34, 74
future trends, 5052 limitations of theories, 3435
interfaces with military/security services, 51 New Public Management theory, 3335
pretender organizations, 52n3 as norm of civil society, 2938
and pro-business ideology, 46 reliance on corporations, 212
revisionism and reconceptualization, 4750 specialized needs groups, 33
soft vs. hard development, 45 surveys on leadership challenges, 27576
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). See also theories of, 3135
specic organizations from welfare states to social origins, 3135
in Africa, 187, 189 nonviolent activism, 21718, 279
apolitical delivery of services, 39799 The Nonviolent Revolution (Altman), 279
in Bangladesh, 12 Norberg, J. R., 34
calls for global parliament of, 213 norms of civil society. See civil society norms
capacity-building by, 5 Norris, P., 251, 253
Chinese investigation of, 163 North-South relations. See global North; global
consultancy with UN Peace Building South
Commission, 99 Norway, 31, 32
controlled by Middle East authoritarian nuclear armament, 351
rulers, 152
faith-based organizations, 26566
and global nonjournalism, 355 Obama, Barack
government sponsorship in China, 159 anti-terrorist nancing policy discussions, 301
grassroots type of, 455 Cairo speech, 472
in Guatemala, 413 continuation of MEPI program, 472
in India, 175 elections (2008), 2425, 58, 119, 237
lack of amelioration of poverty, 130 establishment of Ofce of Social
lack of good society virtues in, 212 Innovation, 29
in Latin America, 130 information-control policies, 353
and neoliberalism, 12829 Ofce for Civil Society (UK), 37
number of, 94 Ofce for the Community and Voluntary Sector
poverty reduction, 166 (NZ), 37
index 507
Oklahoma City bombing (U.S.), 410 People Improving Communities through

Ola Joven program (FCAM), 461 Organizing (PICO), 263
Oliveira, F., 127 people power mobilizations, 217
OMeara, Kerry Ann, 326 Pereira, Bresser, 129
Open Constitution Initiative (China), 306 performance contracts, 3536
openDemocracy website, 95 performance demands, 3536, 84, 154
Open Society Institute, 471 Persistent Poverty Project (U.S.), 462
open-source software movement, 341 Peru, 122, 124, 125, 127, 395
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Petrobras (Brazil), 436
Development (OECD), 94 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
organized commonwealth, 1518 survey on religious afliation, 271
Orvis, S., 185 Phalanges (Lebanon), 149
Oslo Accords (1993), 147 philanthrocapitalism, 481
Ostrom, Elinor, 200, 334, 366 philanthropy
Ottoman Empire, 148, 150 civic renewal philanthropy, 45152
Our World is Not for Sale, 100 family-based type in Middle East, 151
Oxfam, 42, 95, 430 grassroots philanthropy, 45565
impact of economic recession on, 83
institutional philanthropy, 44352
pacism, 260 in market-based societies, 11
Paffenholz, T., 41213 redenition in business terms, 128
Pakistan, 84, 432 and social origins theory on nonprot
Palestinian National Authority, 146 regimes, 32
Palestinian Territories, 147, 155 in UK, 34
Paley, J., 184 venture philanthropy, 88
Palin, Sarah, 459 Philippines, 217, 238
Palmer, Parker, 273 phronesis, denition of, 328
Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), 111 Piven, Francis Fox, 449
Paris Commune, 23 A Place for Us: How to Make Society Civil and
participation Democracy Strong (Barber), 324
in budgetary process, Latin America, 126, 127, Plato, on the Good, 1517
22728 plug-in volunteers, 22526, 227
citizen engagement, 5657, 42425 Pocantico Declaration (2009), 358
democratic rights, 99100 Poland, 30, 34, 35, 61, 134, 137
and demographic characteristics, 24748 Polanyi, Karl, 5
gender gaps, 24553 policymaking and public agendas, 11618
predictors of, 388 political participation. See participation
resources/motivation/mobilization, 114 political parties, 7375, 251. See also specic
and social capital, 2034 political parties
participatory budget process, in Latin politics, 7475, 317
America, 126, 127, 22728 politics of hope, 395, 400
Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD) Polletta, F., 240, 242n8
(Mexico), 125 Pol Pot, 238
Partnership Against Corruption Initiative polycentric governance systems, 334
(PACI), 432 Portugal, 85
Partners in Development (Egypt), 155 Post, S., 280
Patanjali, 273 Pouligny, B., 412
Pattie, C., 251 poverty
Peace Accords of 1996 (Guatemala), 413 due to bourgeois civil society, 22
peace-building in Egypt, 155
achievements of civil society, 40414 and exclusion from public sphere, 155
and civil society as normative concept, and impact of economic crisis (200810), 393
40411 and political strength, 2023
and issues of violence, 406, 40811 in southern Africa, 464
as liberal peace, 41114 status of during NGO growth, 130
Peace Building Commission, UN, 99 use of kinship systems, 201
Pei, M., 162 poverty reduction initiatives
Pentagon Papers, 351, 359 civil society achievements on, 391401
Pentecostalism, 26465 and government policies, 223, 39596, 449
508 index
poverty reduction initiatives (continued) Provisional Regulations for the Registration and
impact of CSOs on, 2023 Management of Popular Non-Enterprise
lessons learned, 399400 Work-Units (China, 1998), 167
and NGDO strategy, 46 public argumentation, 37172
NGO advocacy, 39395 Public Broadcasting System (U.S.), 355
NGOs in China, 166 public goods, 36668, 385, 387
service delivery, 39799 public interest groups. See advocacy groups
War on Poverty, 223, 449 public journalism
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), 396 advantages of, 34041
Power: A Radical View (Lukes), 417 and increased engagement, 11
power cube, spaces of power, 42022 as new ecosystem, 35658
power models as space of civil society, 34959
of Alinsky, 5960 state control of information, 35054
control of information, 34959 Publicly Limited Companies (PLC), 85
of Sartre, 33132 publicness, ideal of, 31821
power relations public opinion, 31920, 329, 354, 370, 371
changing nature of, 41923 public-private partnership, 11, 33, 226, 29395
and civil society, 41625 public spaces, 126
globalization of, 422 public sphere. See also Habermas, Jrgen
and transformative potential of civil changes due to broadcast media, 317
society, 42325 and collective choice, 31314
Precision Journalism (Meyer), 355 communist party-state control of, 13638
Presidential Hundred Hour Challenge Award and culture, 31415
(U.S.), 225 and diversity, 24553
Principles of International Charity, 301 and equality, 23840
Pritchett, Henry S., 447 ideal of publicness, 31821
private property, 2223 importance of, 31517
private sector social entrepreneurship, 8188 journalism and decline of, 35456
private voluntary organizations (PVOs), 43 and market forces, 313, 316
privatization of state services, 82, 12829 in Middle East, history of, 15456
pro-am culture, 82 as spaces of civil society, 31121
professionalization and spirituality, 27779
of foundations and distance from state as complementary to, 314
citizens, 45051 and tactical denitions of uncivil
of NGOs, 11213, 11516, 118, 17476, 429, 455 society, 21618
professions, licensing of, 448 urban sociability, 31213, 31617
Project Hope (China), 167 public work
ProPublica, 356, 357 and commonwealth ideals, 32627, 329, 33334
prosperity gospel churches, 26465 and deliberative citizen, 32425, 32730
protective inuence, of individual, 379 and democratic movements, 33334
protest free spaces and co-creation, 325, 33133
denition of, 70 as means to bridging differences, 33031
on environmental issues in Europe, 217 as space of civil society, 32434, 483
and information technologies, 151 Pushback Network (U.S.), 62
against Iraq war, 95 Putin, Vladimir, 163
popularity of, 6 Putnam, Robert
as public communication, 318 bonding and bridging social capital
and social capital, 75 changes, 266, 38283
and social movement organizations, 70, 74, civil society as foundation for
7677 democracy, 46970, 474
against sweatshops, 43031 equality and civic community, 237
Tiananmen Square demonstrations, 161 social capital, 89, 30, 34, 178, 198, 200, 201,
Tibet demonstrations (2008), 164 47475, 477n3
use of social media, 340
for U.S. immigration reform, 333
by workers in China (1957), 160 Raboy, M., 345
against WTO in Seattle (1999), 437 racial discrimination, 23334. See also civil rights
Protestantism, 26062, 264 movement (U.S.)
proto-politics, 17980 Radcliff, B., 117
index 509
radical equality. See also equality res publica, 312

and associational life, 23738 Reveille for Radicals (Alinsky), 263
denition of, 23435 Revenue Watch Institute, 432
and goals of civil society, 23537 Right to the City (RTTC), 6264
and good society, 24041 risk matrix, for overseas giving, 301
and public sphere, 23840 Ritscher, James, 276
radical ethno-nationalism, 409 Robins, K., 342
radical fundamentalism, 61, 26263 Robinson, M., 397
radicalism, characteristics of, 235 Rockefeller, John D., 447
radiofrequency spectrum, 344 Rockefeller Brothers Fund, 471
Rafsanjani, Akbar Hashemi, 149 Rockefeller Foundation, 301, 447, 448
Rahman, S., 397, 398 Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, 448
Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), 173, 17879 Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the
Rawls, John, 371 Eradication of Hookworm Disease, 448
Reagan-Thatcher era (1980s), 4647, 82. See also Rodriguez, R., 238
neoliberalism Roman Catholic Church. See Catholic Church
reason, 17 Roman Empire, 1718
Rebuilding Communities Initiative (U.S.), 461 Roosevelt, Franklin, 449
recreational associations, 251, 392, 474 Roozen, D. A., 26061
Regulations on the Management of Foundations Rosenblum, Nancy, 233, 287
(China, 2004), 167 Rosenstiel, Tom, 359
reinventing government, 82 Ross, Edward Alsworth, 44647
religion and religious institutions. See also Rotary, 110
spirituality; specic religions Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 21, 315
congregational diversity, 261 Rudolph, Susanne, 177
conservative vs. liberal viewpoints, 26263 rule of law, 20
European freedoms of association/speech/ Rural Credit Project (BRAC), 398
religion, 214 Rural Development Program (BRAC), 398
interfaith collaboration, 266, 271 Russell Sage Foundation, 447
involuntary aspects of, 383 Russia
in Islamic societies, 36364 backlash against privatization, 436
liabilities of U.S. mega-churches, 88 effects of Ford Foundation funding in, 475
during Middle Ages, 1718 emergence of nonprots, 34
as norm of civil society, 25767 illiberal democracy, 210
Pew survey on religious afliation, 271 number of NGOs, 44
as private belief, 18 Rwanda, 9
and social engagement examples, 26366
social role of, 25859
typologies of and civil society Saddam Hussein, 155
interaction, 25962 Salamon, L. M., 3132
U.S. freedoms of association/speech/ Sambrook, Richard, 355
religion, 22, 214 Sandel, Michael, 372
vs. spirituality, 25859, 271 Santos, B. S., 127
young adult participation, 271 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 431
religious groups. See also specic groups Sartre, Jean Paul, 33132
American membership in, 110 Satterthwaite, D., 395
as associations in Middle East, 149, 153 Saudi Arabia, 147, 150
harmful uses of, 257 Save the Children Fund, 432
Hindu identity groups in India, 173, 178 saving-and-credit schemes, 394
justication of violence by, 263 Schattschneider, E., 420
with political agendas in Middle East, 15051 Schlozman, K., 364
protesting of policies, 257 Scholte, J. A., 96
provision of social services, 257 school choice, 292
and social services in Europe, 32 school of citizenship concept, 29091
Renard, R., 396 Schudson, M., 229, 320
renationalization of nancial institutions, 436 Schumpeter, J., 84
representative governance, limitations of, 6, 96 scientic philanthropy, 44548
representative inuence, of individual, 37980 sectarian religion, 25960. See also religion and
Republican Party (U.S.), 112 religious institutions
510 index
Security and Civil Society report (NCVO), 304 global scope of, 8586
Selections from the Prison Notebooks and innovation, 8384, 482
(Gramsci), 171 institutional drivers of, 8183
Self-Employed Womens Association (SEWA, market orientation of, 8385
Pakistan), 84 and public-private partnerships, 295
Self-Respect Movement (India), 173 and resurgence of social issues, 73
Sen, B., 39293 sociality of, 8384
Sennett, R., 317 social forum phenomena, 240
Serve America Act of 2009, 30 socialism, 408
settlement house movement (U.S.), 228 socialization, 126, 250, 252, 257
Seyd, P., 251 social justice, 84
Shack Dwellers International (SDI), 39495 social media, 82, 155, 33941, 35354. See also
shared decision making, 12829 digital age and information technologies
shared governance, 334 social movement organizations, 6877
Sharkey, Jacqueline, 352 overview, 6869
Shefner, J., 190 and autonomy of self, 7172
Shell Oil, 430, 43132 conictive and consensual collective
Shirky, Clay, 33940, 370 action, 6971
Siemens, 357 and mass-based power for change, 60
Sierra Club, 212 mobilization of volunteers, 58
Sikkink, K., 422 and new forms of politics, 7375
Silberman, Charles, 449 and role of protest, 70, 74, 7677
Skocpol, T., 251 and social conict, 7273
Slack, Jennifer, 342 social movements
Smith, Adam, 18, 2022, 313, 314 denition of, 69
Smith, D. H., 56 disallowance of by communist regimes, 137
Smock, K., 5960 effects on workplace conditions, 33031
Snowy Prairie studies (Eliasoph), 22325, 228 German green social movement, 384
social banditry, 17980 and information technologies, 344
social bonds, 40910 integration of spirituality and justice, 27273
social capital lack of good society virtues in, 212
bonding and bridging of, 266, 38283, 410 maintenance of nonviolence, 217
and collective action, 200, 201 scholarly neglect of right-wing, 21415
and democratic governance, 2012 in South Africa, 397
and diversity, 204 social origins theory
and economic development, 200201 components of, 32
and increased citizen participation, 2034 corporatist nonprot regimes, 32
as norm of civil society, 197205 liberal nonprot regimes, 3132
policy implications, 2025 social democratic nonprot regimes, 32
and protest, 75 statist nonprot regimes, 32
and quality of service delivery, 2025 types of revenue, 32
rapid change and conicts, 2045 social responsibility standard (ISO/SR
relevance of, 198200 26000), 434
and social movements, 6869 Social Science Research Council (U.S.), 448
social change organizations (SCOs), 6065 social sciences, 44648, 452
collaboration among, 62 Social Solidarity Cooperatives (Portugal), 85
Feminist Transformation Watch, 6465 social trust, 41011
management of, 61 social work, 447
Right to the City, 6264 Social Work and Research Centre (India), 174
use of paid staff, 61 societal trust, 201, 211
social clubs, 34 Solidarity and Social Investment Fund (Chile), 130
social compacts. See compacts Solidarity movement (Poland), 61, 134
Social Cooperatives (Italy), 85 Solomon, Jeffrey, 450, 451
social democratic welfare state regimes, 31 Somerville, Bill, 457
social economy concept, 5 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of
social enterprises, 30 1998 (U.S.), 367
social entrepreneurship, 8088 sons of the soil movements, 215
charismatic hero model, 87 Soroptimists, 110
critiques of, 80, 8788 Soros, George, 432, 471
index 511
South Africa Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating

anti-apartheid movement, 60, 237, 240 Committee, 280
concept of ubuntu, 206n2 Su, C., 60
corporations and sustainability standards, 434 Sub-Saharan Africa
gender/race/ethnic bias in nonprot sector, 238 civil society, post-independence era, 18391
naturalization of racial prejudice, 331 civil society as good society, 18788
social movements, 397 critiques of NGOs, 187, 189, 19091
Treatment Action Campaign, 424 disillusionment of postcolonial elite, 18687
United Democratic Front, 240 ideology of kinship, 18586
Soviet Union, former, 49, 134, 13638, 288 impediments to democratic political culture
spaces of civil society. See civil society spaces in, 18990
spaces of power, 42023 resistance (1980s), 188
spiritual activism, 27275 structural adjustment agenda, 184
spirituality. See also religion and religious subsidiarity, 93, 100, 102, 103n8
institutions Sudan, 350
and associational life, 27577 Su orders, 149
denitions of, 27172 Sumner, William Graham, 23233
and good society, 27980 Sustainable Soya Roundtable, 434
mysticism, 25960 Swadeshi Mitra Mandal (India), 173
as norm of civil society, 27080 Sweden, 30, 31, 32, 34, 251
relationship to collective suffering, 27275 Switzerland, 211
and tensions in public sphere, 27779 Syria, 147, 149, 15455, 473
valuing of, 262
vs. religion, 25859, 271
spousal violence, 319 tactical media, 340
state centralization, 45 Tancredo, Tom, 459
state/government Tata, 434
and boundaries of civil society, 28591 Taylor, Charles, 315
capacity building in nonprot sector, 37 Teach for America (U.S.), 30
and civil society, 12425 Tea Party movement (U.S.), 60, 112, 459
devolution, 5, 293 technological determinism, 342
e-government portals, 340 technology. See digital age and information
Hobbess civil society as, 1819 technologies
inuence on group formation, 113, 21011 Tenants and Workers United, 63
information-control policies, 35054 Tendler, J., 45
as institutional framework of civil Teng Biao, 164
society, 28596 Ten Tactics for Turning Information into Activism
as invisible hand, 21, 314, 315 (lm), 340
material support for associations, 29193 terrorism watch lists, 299302
NGOs and pro-poor reforms, 39596 Thailand, 326
and NPM strategies, 33 Thatcher, Margaret, 4647, 82
partnerships with civil society, 29395 The Working Class: A Break with the Past
poverty reduction initiatives, 223, 39596, 449 (Aronowitz), 332
privatization of services, 128 thin democracy, 324
regulation of communication think tanks, 130, 449
infrastructure, 344, 345 third party government, 293
relations with institutional third sector, 5, 74, 12829, 168. See also nonprot
philanthropy, 44950 sector
and social inequality, 23536 third sector organizations (TSOs), 43
state-owned enterprise, 16465, 43536 third-way politics, 5, 29, 82
use of quasi NGOs, 101 Thompson, E. P., 332
state-owned enterprise, 43536 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, 161
status goods, 385 Tilly, Charles, 233
Stembridge, Jane, 279 Tocqueville, Alexis de
Stone, Harlan Fiske, 448 administrative decentralization, 44445, 446
Stone Circles (U.S.), 27475 associations as schools of democracy, 381
Stopler, G., 235 civic engagement in self-governance, 452
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere civicness and civility, 22122, 223
(Habermas), 171, 320, 328 civil society, 210
512 index
Tocqueville, Alexis de (continued) United Farm Workers, 59

comparison to Alinskys views, 59 United Kingdom. See also specic organizations
consequences of participation, 200 Big Society policies, 5, 29, 30
conservative reliance on, 2324 British mandate in Israel, 150
Democracy in America, 174, 241, 337, 443 corporate accountability reform attempts, 437
democratic engagement in problem- Department for International
solving, 451 Development, 266
democratization of society, 320 formal compacts, 33, 37
equality, 232, 241 gender differences in participation, 251
habits of association, 186 and impact of economic crisis (200810), 35
institutional philanthropy, 44345 as liberal welfare state regime, 31
limitations of, 7, 13 London subway bombings and public
voluntary associations and democracy, 46970 journalism, 355, 369
Toledo, Alejandro, 125 nonprot sector, 32, 35, 37
Tomasky, Michael, 233 philanthropy for arts/culture, 34
totalitarianism, 210 and public safety volunteers, 30
trade secrets, 319 quasi-independent regulation, 3024
trade unions. See labor unions Reagan-Thatcher era, 4647, 82
Training for Change (U.S.), 278 renationalization of nancial institutions, 436
transformative organizing, 59 Social Enterprise Unit, 81
transitologists, 122 surveys on social enterprises, 8586
transmission belt model, 89, 29091, 481 war on terror and civil liberties, 299
transparency, 9699, 319, 432 young adult participation, 247
Transparency International, 432 United Nations (UN)
Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa), 424 accountability within, 100
Troeltsch, Ernst, 25960 and cross-border associations, 95
trust. See societal trust CSOs as representatives in, 381
Tunisia, 147, 150, 154 Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, 96
turbo-capitalism, 73 demands for whistleblower policies, 96, 100
Turkey Financing for Development, 99
CSOs in, 147, 151 formation of, 43
inuence of autocracy, 146 funding and terrorist watch lists, 301
inuence of regional authoritarianism on, 147 gender considerations in Financing for
labor unions, 150 Development negotiations, 99
political pluralism, 149, 156 Human Development Report, 464
public sphere, history of, 155 international framework for business and
Turner, Rick, 331 human rights, 437
Tvedt, T., 43 Internet Governance Forum, 345
Millennium Development Goals, 50, 51, 100
organization of global summits, 95
Uganda, 44 Peace Building Commission, 99
Ukraine, 163 transparency of nomination process, 99
ulama (Islamic scholars), 36364 World Summit on the Information
uncivil society Society, 34546
associational life with destructive United Nations Centre for Human Settlements
consequences, 378 (Habitat), 394
and critique of school of citizenship United Nations Development Program
concept, 29091 (UNDP), 147
Mann on use of civil society for evil United States. See also specic agencies and
ends, 4089 organizations
normative denitions of, 21216, 48385 access to state court decisions, 367
and norms of civil society, 20918 accusations of Interpal, 303
organizational denitions of, 21012 administrative decentralization, history
summary critique on use of term, 218 of, 44445
tactical denitions of, 21618 afrmative action, 113
and violence based on religious ideals, 263 Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines, 300, 301
Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT), 149 blocking of WTO negotiations, 9899
unions. See labor unions charitable contributions by individuals, 463
United Democratic Front (South Africa), 240 Christian Coalition, 112, 260
index 513
civil liberties, 319 settlement house movement, 224, 228

civil rights movement, 61, 217, 218n2, 23738, social clubs, 34
333, 459 social movements impact on workplace, 33031
civil society in, 10919 and social origins theory on nonprot
commonwealth ideals, 326 regimes, 3132
conservative associations, 112 surveillance of nonprots, 302
constitution of, 22 tax-exempt status, 292
corporate inuence over regulatory Tea Party movement, 60, 112, 459
process, 433 third party government, 293
counterinsurgency grants to Afghanis, 45859 treatment of Muslim charities, 300
culture wars, 482 Vietnam War, 113, 351, 353
decline of associational life, 237 voluntarism, 11415, 463
decline of cross-class federations, 10919 voter behavior, 237, 247
decline of news media, 35456 War on Poverty, 223, 449
democratic reform eras, 24 war on terror and civil liberties, 299302
disproportion in Senate representation, 215 wealth redistribution, 24
economic recession (200810), 43233 welfare reform, 32
education levels and participation, 248 womens impact on policy, 251
e-government portals, 340 young adult participation, 247, 248
employment and participation, 250 United States Agency for International
fellowship associations, 11011 Development (USAID), 266, 470, 474
foreign policy in Middle East, 5 United Way (U.S.), 302
freedoms of association/speech/religion, 22, 214 universal ethic, 21
free spaces, history of, 33134, 483 universalistic bonds, 41011
funding of paid volunteers, 30 University of Chicago, 448
gender differences in participation, 24950 UnLtd (UK), 86
giving circles, 464 Unorganised Sector Workers Social Security Bill
grassroots philanthropy, 45860 (India, 2008), 176
hate groups, 224 Urban Peace Movement (U.S.), 276
home care services, 36 urban sociability, and history of civil society
immigration reform protest, 333 ideas, 31213, 31617
and impact of economic crisis (200810), 35 Uruguay, 122, 125, 12627
incidence of associations, 56, 210 U.S. Climate Action Partnership, 431
income level and participation, 247 U.S. Defense Department, 351
jury service, 365 U.S. Homeland Security Department, 99
L3C corporations, 85 U.S. Internal Revenue Service, 385
labor unions, 63, 11718, 237 U.S. National Institute for Science and
liabilities of mega-churches, 88 Technology, 99
liabilities of prosecution and U.S. Ofce of Social Innovation, 29
overregulation, 299302, 3034 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 433
as liberal welfare state regime, 31, 32 U.S. State Department, Bureau for Democracy,
loss of avenues for political Human Rights, and Labor, 470
participation, 11416 U.S. Supreme Court
McCarthyism, 29899 on criminalization of support to suspected
Medicaid program, 36 terrorist organizations, 299
multicultural identity politics, 233 U.S. Trade Representative Ofce (USTR), 100, 102
nondiscrimination protections, 29293 U.S. Treasury
nonprot journalism, 35558 Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines, 300, 301
nonprot sector, 29, 3235, 57, 238, 292, 385 utilitarianism, 316, 371
participation among African
Americans, 24849, 33233
participation among Latinos, 24748 The Vanishing Newspaper (Meyer), 355
Pew survey on religious afliation, 271 Van Kleeck, Mary, 447
predictors of political participation, 388 Van Ryzin, G. S., 86
presidential information-control, 35254 Varshney, Ashutosh, 178, 211, 410
public achievement programs, 227 Vasquez, Tabar, 125
Reagan-Thatcher era, 4647, 82 Venezuela, 124, 130, 228, 436, 476
renationalization of nancial institutions, 436 venture philanthropy, 88
school choice, 292 Verba, S., 109, 110, 364
514 index
veterans associations (U.S.), 110 Warner, M., 319

Via Campesina, 95 War on Poverty (U.S.), 223, 449
Vietnam war on terror. See counterterrorism law/policy
Decree on Associations, 307 The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist
discretionary restrictions on space for civil Europe (Howard), 134
society, 299, 307 The Wealth of Nations (Smith), 2021
diverse sources of identity, 204 wealth redistribution, 24
and social capital theory, 203 Weber, Max, 258
Vietnam Institute of Development Studies, 307 webinars, 340
Vietnam Institute of Development Studies Webster, F., 341, 342
(VIDS), 307 Weimar Germany, 9, 378, 409, 475. See also
Vietnam War, 113, 351, 353 Germany
violence Welfare Reform Act of 1996 (U.S.), 293
correlations to high levels of inequality, 410 welfare states
decline of intra-elite violence in Middle and incidence of associations, 210
Ages, 406 means-testing, 31
as means to political goals, 21718 mix of state and market mechanisms, 31
and peace-building, 40811 shifts from cash assistance to nonprot
Virginia New Majority (U.S.), 63 providers of services, 32
visible power, 420 types of regimes, 3135
Voltaire, 369 universal benets, 31
voluntarism West Bank, 146
in global South, 47 Westminster Foundation for Democracy
in grassroots associations, 56 (WFD), 471
levels of in U.S., 11415, 463 West Publishing Company, 367
plug-in volunteers, 22526 White, G., 184
worldwide growth of, 30 White Aryan Nation (U.S.), 224, 225
voluntary associations. See also associational life; Whiteley, P., 251
grassroots associations Whos Behind the Financial Meltdown? (Center
and administrative decentralization, 445 for Public Integrity), 357
and functional need for specialized Wiarda, H. J., 190
knowledge, 22324 Wiebe, Robert, 446
Islamic organizations, 473 Wikipedia website, 95, 341, 369
low membership in post-communist Wilkinson-Maposa, Susan, 46364
Europe, 135 Willard, Frances, 113, 33334
normative denitions of, 381 Wills, Garry, 35152
retrogressive outcomes of, 9, 88 Wilson, Brian, 260
as socially homogenous, 224, 383 Wilson, Woodrow, 471, 477n2
voluntary development organizations (VDOs), 43 Windfalls of War (Center for Public Integrity), 357
Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Winner, Langdon, 342
Rights, 431 wireless adhocracies, 340
volunteering-as-therapy, 22526, 227 Wolff, Michael, 353
Volunteers in America, 22930 Wolfowitz, Paul, 100101
voting Womans Christian Temperance Union, 113
among U.S. Latinos, 247 women
cultural recognition of, 315 and diversity in participation, 24952
decline of, 57 and ethic of caring, 252
due to face-to-face appeals, 115 exclusion from nonprot sector
in Iraqi elections (2010), 237 leadership, 238
in U.S. elections (2008), 237 in governmental leadership, 249
voter engagement, 63 as helpmates of mens groups, 113
by women, 249, 251 impact on policy, 251
vouchers, and shift to NPM strategies, 33, 36 rights of and CSOs in Middle East, 153
socialization of in U.S., 250
social movements, 72, 319
Wagner Act, U.S., 33031 women-centered groups, 59, 6465, 166,
Wainwright, H., 240 173, 461
Walzer, Michael, 4, 13, 233 Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and
waqfs (Islamic philanthropy), 148, 151 Organizing (WIEGO), 176
index 515
Womens Christian Temperance Union World Trade Organization (WTO)

(U.S.), 33334 agricultural subsidies, 9899
Woolcock, Michael, 480 Doha Round, 96, 9899
The Work and Workers of the Womens Christian negotiation of provisions, 100, 102
Temperance Union (Willard), 33334 Seattle protests against (1999), 437
Workers Party (Brazil), 125, 12627 transparency, 97
work integration social enterprises (WISEs, World Urban Forum (2004), 62
Europe), 84 World Values Surveys (WVS)
workplace, 33031, 383 on organizational membership in
Workshop in Political Theory and Policy post-communist Europe, 13536
Analysis, 334 World Vision, 42, 265
World Bank World Zionist Organization, 150
on civil society as good society, 187 Wright, E. O., 325, 329
demands for transparency by, 98 Wuthnow, Robert, 223
effects of Internet on rural youth, 326
and empowered deliberative democracy, 329
External Relations Department, 46 Xue Muqiao, 161
Global Alliance for Workers and
Communities, 432
increase of civil society projects, 471 Yahoo, 168
removal of Wolfowitz, 100101 Yamamori, T., 264
SDI inuence on investment policies of, 394 Yemen, 149
and social capital language, 199 Yishuv organizations, 150
World Economic Forum, 95, 432 Young, Iris Marion, 239, 320
World Federalist Movement, 95, 99 YouthBuild (U.S.), 30
Worldwide Fund for Nature, 430, 431 Yugoslavia, former, 137
World Social Forum, 95, 213, 240, 437
World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS), 102, 34546 Zittrain, J., 346

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the oxford handbook of

Copyright 2011 by John Swenson

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

The Oxford handbook of civil society / edited by Michael Edwards.

1. Introduction: Civil Society and the Geometry of Human Relations 3

2. The History of Civil Society Ideas 15

Part II The Forms Of Civil Society

3. The Nonprot Sector 29

7. Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurs 80

8. Global Civil Society 93

Part III Geographical Perspectives

9. Civil Society in the United States 109

10. Civil Society in Latin America 122

11. Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe 134

12. Civil Society in the Middle East 146

13. Civil Society in China 159

14. Civil Society in India 171

15. Civil Society in Sub-Saharan Africa 183

Part IV The Norms Of Civil Society

16. Civil Society and Social Capital 197

17. Civil and Uncivil Society 209

18. Civil Society and Civility 220

19. Civil Society and Equality 232

20. Civil Society and Diversity 245

21. Civil Society and Religion 257

22. Civil Society and Spirituality 270

Part V The Spaces of Civil Society

23. Civil Society and Government 285

24. Civil Society and Civil Liberties 298

25. Civil Society and the Public Sphere 311

26. Civil Society and Public Work 324

27. Civil Society in the Digital Age 337

28. Civil Society and Public Journalism 349

29. Civic Knowledge 362

Part VI The Achievements Of Civil Society

30. Civil Society and Democracy 377

31. Civil Society and Poverty 391

32. Civil Society and Peace 404

33. Civil Society and Power 416

34. Civil Society and the Market 428

Part VII Supporting Civil Society

35. Civil Society and Institutional Philanthropy 443

36. Civil Society and Grassroots Philanthropy 455

37. Assisting Civil Society and Promoting Democracy 468

38. Conclusion: Civil Society as a Necessary and Necessarily

Clifford Bob is Associate Professor of Political Science at Duquesne University.

Catherine Bolzendahl is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of

Hilde Coff is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Utrecht University. Her main

Mario Diani is ICREA Research Professor in the Department of Political and

Michael Edwards is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos in New York, and

John Ehrenberg is Senior Professor of Political Science at the Brooklyn Campus of

Nina Eliasoph is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern

Omar G. Encarnacin is Professor and Chair of Political Studies at Bard College,

Alan Fowler holds professorial appointments at the Erasmus University in the

John Gaventa is Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, University of

Marc Morj Howard is Professor of Government at Georgetown University. He is

David Hulme is Professor of Development Studies at the Institute for

Solava Ibrahim is a Research Fellow in Global Poverty Reduction at the Brooks

Eberhard Kienle is a research professor at the Centre National de la Recherche

Frances Kunreuther is the Director of the Building Movement Project and a