Civil Society: Theory and reality

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Civil Society Theory and reality

• Dr. Suvi Salmenniemi
• Department of Sociology
• University of Helsinki

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Outline of the lecture

• Civil society theories definitions and debates
• Civil society in socialism?
• Renaissance of civil society
• Perspectives to postsocialist civil societies
  theoretical dilemmas

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Civil society theories

• Two types of conceptualizations of civil
  society
• Civil society conceptualized in terms of space
  civil society as a distinctive sphere (What is
  it?)
• In terms of functions what tasks is civil
  society supposed to perform? (What does it do?)

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Spatial definition

• Civil society is a broad term that captures a
  wide range of civic organizations operating
  outside the realm of government, business, and
  the family. (Sarah L. Henderson)
• Civil society refers to a set of institutions
  civic organizations/NGOs, trade unions, religious
  societies, free media etc.

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Public/private distinction

• The public-private dichotomy has traditionally
  referred to two distinctions
• 1. The state versus society (public vs. private
  ownership)
• 2. The state and society versus the domestic
  sphere.
• In the first distinction, civil society is placed
  in the private sphere and in the latter in the
  public

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Criticism

• Peggy Watson civil society should be conceived
  of as a domain of fluctuating yet stable power
  relations constituted by, yet also existing
  beyond, the interactions of specific social
  actors.
• Agency in and access to civil society is
  conditioned by such factors as race, class,
  gender etc.

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Functional approach to civil society

• Michael W. Foley Bob Edwards
• Civil Society I associated with Alexis de
  Tocqueville and Robert Putnam emphasizes
  associational life as a facilitator of patterns
  of civility in the actions of citizenry,
  cultivating norms of reciprocity, trust and
  democracy.
• Civil Society II associated with the Eastern
  European intellectual tradition that draws on the
  Gramscian notion of counter-hegemony civil
  society as a sphere independent from the state
  and defending the individual against it.

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Distinction

• Civil society I emphasizes the positive effects
  of associational life for governance
• Civil society II stresses the conflictual
  potential of civil society as a counterforce to
  the state.

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Jeffrey C. Alexander

• Civil society I CS as an inclusive,
  umbrella-like concept referring to a plethora of
  institutions outside the state. Moral force
• Civil society II CS associated with market
  capitalism. Marx CS a field for the play of
  egoistical, purely private interests arena of
  class oppression.
• Civil society III CS as a sphere that is
  analytically independent of and to varying
  degrees empirically differentiated from the state
  and the market and other social spheres. Concept
  for empirical enquiry.

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Jean Cohen Andrew Arato

• Distinction between political civil
  society
• Political society mediates between civil society
  and the state
• Civil society as an arena of citizens
  self-organization
• Political society directly involved with state
  power ltgt civil society

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Civil society in socialism?

• During the Cold War and today civil society
  discussion marked by heavy political baggage and
  normatively loaded stands
• State socialism civil society officially defined
  as a bourgeois institution unsuitable for
  peoples democracy
• Eastern European intellectuals the Gramscian
  counter-hegemonic version of civil society a
  crucial conceptual tool in the struggle against
  Communist rule
• In the West, absence of civil society in
  socialism seen as a manifestation of lack of
  democracy also seen as a problem in postsocialism

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Civil society in socialism? YES

• Spatial argument there were elements of civil
  society in socialist societies e.g. trade
  unions, sport organizations, composers and
  writers unions, etc. -- although they were
  connected with the state.
• Anna Rotkirch The civil society of late
  socialism had a positive content special niches,
  environments and spheres of activity that were
  less ideologically regulated from above, and
  where alternative ideologies and ways of being
  were nurtured.

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Socialist social order(Zdravomyslova Voronkov)

• Official public Party-state apparatus, official
  collectives and societal organizations
• Informal Public (seeds of civil society) Shadow
  economy, dissident groups, samizdat, sub- and
  counter cultures, kitchens, cafeterias,
  ecological and intellectual movements, ethnic
  societies
• Private Family, kin, love, friendship

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Civil society in socialism? NO

• Functional approach e.g. L.P. Borisov (1996)
  Some elements of civil society (family, working
  community, social organizations) can appear
  under a totalitarian regime as well, but the lack
  of necessary conditions that could ensure the
  independence of those elements from political
  power and their right to self-governance and
  independent activity makes it impossible to
  consider a society a civil one

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• Oleg Kharkhordin civil society makes sense
  only if it includes individual freedom.
• Michael Urban civil society as a sphere that is
  characterized by normative discourse that aims at
  achieving understanding between different social
  groups in society communication in public
  sphere.
• ? no civil society in socialist societies
• Civil society in West individuals organize into
  voluntary associations around certain interests
  which they represent to others (), thus linking
  themselves to one another within these
  associations, producing social identities.

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Renaissance of civil society

• The collapse of the USSR and the whole Eastern
  bloc
• Democratization in Latin America and South Africa
• Civil society as an important conceptual tool to
  criticise and oppose authoritarian and communist
  regimes
• Crisis of the welfare state in West and East
  and the rise of neoliberal political agenda
  civil society, understood as the third sector
  to take more responsibility for social protection
  and welfare

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Civil society orthodoxy

• NGOs civil society democracy
• Civil society as liberation or as (benevolent)
  colonialism
• Civil society as medicine metaphors of
  sickness, health and nature

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Perspectives to postsocialist civil society
Theoretical dilemmas

• 3 approaches to understanding post-socialist
  civil society in contemporary scholarly
  literature examples from the Russian context but
  apply to the general discussion of civil society
  in postsocialism
• 1. evaluative
• 2. theoretical
• 3. empirical-comparative

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Evaluative approach

• Esp. in the studies dealing with the effects of
  Western democracy aid to postsocialist NGOs
• Assesses and measures postsocialist civil
  society is there a civil society and what is its
  level of development?
• Western, most often American, associational life
  and the third sector model as the starting point
• E.g. Sarah L. Henderson The aim is to assess
  the degree to which Western assistance can
  facilitate the emergence of civil society, and
  ultimately, democracy in countries where
  domestically such impulses are nonexistent or
  weak.

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Theoretical approach

• Alternative theorization of and research
  programme for studying civil society based on
  Russian history and culture.
• Western-based understandings of civil society are
  insufficient and unsuitable for understanding
  Russian civil society
• E.g. Oleg Kharkhordin and Vadim Volkov

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Kharkhodin and the O-stream

• Charles Taylor distinction between two
  traditions of civil society in Western
  philosophical and political thought
• L-stream (following Locke) the Anglo-American
  liberal tradition, which conceptualizes civil
  society as a pre-political ethical community with
  a minimal role for the state. Linked with
  Protestatism.
• The M-stream (following Montesquieu) a
  Tocquevillean vision of civil society as a set of
  associations that mediate relations between the
  state and the individual. Connected with
  Catholicism.
• Kharkhordin an O-stream -- a Russian civil
  society based on the traditions of Orthodox
  Christianity.

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Vadim Volkov Obshchestvennost

• Does not question the applicability of the
  concept of civil society in Russia, but sees it
  as having been inadequately translated instead
  of grazhdanskoe obshchestvo he proposes
  obshchestvennost
• This is an example of a cross-cultural
  translation instead of formal concept
  application
• Structural-functional approach problematic Not
  everything that is outside the state or that
  opposes or corrupts the state can be associated
  with civil society. Informal networks have a very
  limited capacity to constructively influence the
  state.

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Chris Hann

• The standard Western civil society model is not
  necessarily the model that best captures the
  logic and structure of post-communist civil
  society it may build upon different kinds of
  social practices and institutions
• The concept of civil society needs to be
  broadened, relativised and adapted to local
  conditions.
• The civil society debate has been too narrowly
  circumscribed by Western models of
  liberal-individualism The exploration of civil
  society requires that careful attention be paid
  to a range of informal interpersonal practices
  which were of central importance in state
  socialist societies and are still in
  post-socialist societies

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Empirical-comparative approach

• Marc Morjé Howard comparative study of
  postcommunist civil societies
• Civil society can be measured empirically
  according to certain common standards to explain
  why civil societies differ historically and
  culturally
• Civil society operationalized for the purposes of
  comparative empirical research as citizens
  membership and participation in voluntary
  organizations
• This approach cannot catch those logics and
  practices of civil society outside formal
  participation in voluntary organizations

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Civil society as a discourse

• How do different actors use the concept of civil
  society and what functions does it have?
• Global circulation of civil society
• Susan Gal As they concepts and agendas pass
  across boundaries of states, political economies
  and gender regimes they are decontextualized and
  recontextualized, fitted into other discourses
  which may change the meaning of arguments.
• Study on civil society as a discourse can offer
  clues about the political culture in different
  countries

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Sources

• Alexander, J. C. (1998) Introduction. Civil
  society I, II, III Constructing an Empirical
  Concept from Normative Controversies and
  Historical Transformations. In Alexander, J. C.
  (ed.) Real Civil Societies. Dilemmas of
  Institutionalisation. Sage, London, 1-20.
• Cohen, J.L. A. Arato (1992) Civil society and
  political theory. MIT.
• Foley, M.W. Edwards, B. (1996) The paradox of
  civil society. Journal of Democracy 73, 38-52.
• Hann, C. (1996) Introduction Political society
  and civil anthropology. In Hann, C. Dunn, E.
  (eds.) Civil Society. Challenging Western Models.
  Routledge, London and New York, 1-26.
• Hann, C. (2002) Farewell to the socialist
  other. In Hann, C.M. (eds.) Postsocialism.
  Ideals, ideologies and practices in Eurasia.
  Routledge, New York and London, 1-11.
• Hemment, Julie (1998) Colonization or Liberation
  The Paradox of NGOs in Postsocialist States. The
  Anthropology of East Europe Review 161.
• Henderson, Sarah (2003) Building Democracy in
  Contemporary Russia Western Support to
  Grassroots Organizations. Cornell University
  Press, Ithaca.
• Howard, M.M. (2002a) Postcommunist Civil Society
  in Comparative Perspective. Demokratizatsiya
  103, 285-306.

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Sources

• Howard, M.M.(2003) The Weakness of Civil Society
  in Post-Communist Europe. Cambridge University
  Press, Cambridge.
• Kharkhordin, O. (1998)Civil society and Orthodox
  Christianity. Europe-Asia Studies 506, 949-968.
• Rotkirch, A. (2000) The Man Question. Loves and
  Lives in Late 20th Century Russia. University of
  Helsinki, Helsinki.
• Urban, M. (with Igrunov, V. Mitrokhin, S.)
  (1997) The Rebirth of Politics in Russia.
  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Volkov, V. (2003) Obshchestvennost Russias
  Lost Concept of Civil Society. In Götz, N.
  Hackmann, J. (eds.) Civil Society in the Baltic
  Sea Region. Ashgate, Aldershot, 63-74.
• Watson, P. (1997) Civil Society and the Politics
  of Difference in Eastern Europe. In Scott, J.W.,
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• Zdravomyslova, E. V. Voronkov (2002) The
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