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Civil Society (civil + society)
Kinds of Civil Society Terms modified by Civil Society Selected Abstracts(ANTI)SOCIAL CAPITAL IN THE PRODUCTION OF AN (UN)CIVIL SOCIETY IN PAKISTAN,GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 3 2005DAANISH MUSTAFA ABSTRACT. Pakistan is home to some of the most widely admired examples of civil-society-based service-delivery and advocacy groups. Pakistan has also spawned some much-maligned nongovernmental actors with violent agendas. This article uses the social capital / civil society conceptual lens to view the modes of (anti)social capital mobilization that contribute to the civil and uncivil spaces of Pakistani society. The case examples of Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic revivalist organization, and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan are used to understand the geography of social and antisocial forces in Pakistan. It is argued that the processes that mobilize social capital-whether positive or perverse-are multiscalar and that, in the Pakistani context, no compelling cultural or religious reason exists for the ascendance of one type of social capital over the other. Positive social capital can be mobilized to contribute to a more civil social discourse in Pakistan, given the right policy choices. [source] NGOs, Local Government, and Agrarian Civil Society: A Case of Evolving Collaboration from Southern PeruCULTURE, AGRICULTURE, FOOD & ENVIRONMENT, Issue 1 2001Assistant Professor Lisa Markowitz First page of article [source] Securing the World and Challenging Civil Society: Before and After the ,War on Terror'DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2010Jude Howell ABSTRACT Following President Bush's declaration of a ,War on Terror' in 2001, governments around the world introduced a range of counter-terrorist legislation, policies and practices. These measures have affected not only human rights and civil liberties but also civil society and aid frameworks. Although the Obama administration has renounced the language of the ,War on Terror' and taken steps to revoke aspects such as water-boarding and the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, the bulk of the legislation and practices associated with the post-9/11 global security framework remain. The cluster of papers which follow provide detailed studies of the effects of the War on Terror regime on civil society in four contexts: the USA, Spain, Kenya and Uzbekistan. In this way it lays a basis for civil society actors and aid agencies to reflect more strategically on how they should engage with security debates and initiatives in a way that best protects the spaces of civil society and the interests of minority and vulnerable groups. This introduction sets out the three key themes pursued throughout the cluster articles, namely, the selective impact of counter-terrorist measures on civil society; the particularity of civil society responsiveness to these measures; and the role of aid and diplomacy in pursuing security objectives and its consequences for civil society. [source] Limits to Democratic Development in Civil Society and the State: The Case of Santo DomingoDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2003Anne Marie Choup Some scholars see civil society as key to democratization of the political system. In this view, pressure from civil society forces democratization of the state. However, this disregards the fact that changes in civil society's behaviour require changes in political society , changes are reciprocal. The demand,making strategies of grassroots organizations in the Dominican Republic in 1999 provide a good example of this dynamic: the incomplete nature of the democratic transition (specifically, the persistence of paternalism and clientelism) constrained the democratic strategy choices of the civil society organizations. Just as democratization within political society is inconsistent and incomplete, so will be the demand,making strategies of the grassroots towards the state. The Dominican case is of particular interest as it illustrates the blend of personalized and institutionalized elements characteristic of democratic transition. [source] From Disaster to Sustainable Civil Society: The Kobe ExperienceDISASTERS, Issue 1 2004Rajib Shaw Nine years after the Kobe earthquake in Japan, social issues are still prominent, and the rehabilitation process is still ongoing. The earthquake caused two major changes in Japanese society: an increase in voluntary and non-government activities, and the enhancement of cooperation between local government and the residents' association. People's participation in the decision-making process was a significant achievement. To sustain the efforts generated after the earthquake, the Kobe Action Plan was formulated and tested in different disaster scenarios. The current study suggests that civil societies in urban areas are sustainable if, first, the activities related to daily services are provided by the resident's associations; and second, these are linked to economic incentives. Leadership plays a crucial role in collective decision-making. Creation of the support system is essential for long-term sustainability of civil-society activities. These observations are exemplified in the case study in Nishi Suma, one of the worst-affected areas in the Kobe city. [source] Civil Society and the State: Turkey After the EarthquakeDISASTERS, Issue 2 2002Rita Jalali On 17 August 1999 Turkey was hit by a massive earthquake. Over 17,000 lives were lost and there was extensive damage to Turkey's heartland. This paper examines how various public and private institutions, including state and civil society institutions such as NGOs and the media responded to the needs of earthquake survivors. It documents the extensive involvement of NGOs in the relief efforts immediately after the disaster and examines the impact of such participation on state-civil society relations in the country. The data show that state response to the disaster went through several phases from a period of ineptitude to effective management. The paper credits the media and the NGOs for acting as advocates for survivors and forcing changes at the state level. The paper argues that an ideal response system, which fully addresses the needs of victims, can only be based on state-civil society relations that are both collaborative and adversarial. [source] Constitutional Irresolution: Law and the Framing of Civil SocietyEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 4 2003Emilios Christodoulidis I will explore some of the more adventurous and persuasive such attempts to argue for an inclusive constitutionalism, one that supposedly reaches out to civil society and in order to do so relaxes the rigidity of its own terms, to harbour and host the diversity it aspires to represent. I will argue that these attempts at inclusion create constitutional irresolutions either forcing impossible demands on constitutionalism or dispelling the disorganisation it is meant to give expression to. I will then argue that in spite of the inability to capture them as constitutional moments, politics of ,pure presence' and real self-determination are possible, and against constitutional mystifications, resistance might find its opportunity in praxis, understood in the language of praxis philosophy (more specifically the work of Antonio Negri). [source] Civil Society and the Re-imagination of European ConstitutionalismEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 4 2003Michael A. Wilkinson Recognising this necessarily dynamic relationship, an essentialist reading of a constitutionalisation of the demos is abandoned, and an examination of the extent to which the dialectic can credibly or legitimately be played out in a supranational ,community' and in the context of an emerging transnational civil society can be undertaken. Rather than seeking credibility or legitimacy through the rationalisation of a community by an ethical consensus as in some forms of republicanism and communitarianism, the dialectic opens up the norms and boundaries of the polity and leads to an understanding of the ,community' in less rigid and more diffuse, even plural, terms. Once understood in this way the possibility emerges for legitimacy to be pursued through a public sphere enlarged by a context-transcending constitutional discourse mediated by transnational civil society. Alternatively the normative ,openness' of the polity might be prioritised and with it the uncertainty/fluidity of the constitutional arrangement itself; in this way the legitimate pursuit of constitutionalism is understood in terms of a never-ending agonistic struggle or experimental practice. [source] Europe in Search of its Civil SocietyEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 2 2002Olivier De Schutter Building upon the experience of the Convention for the elaboration of the Charter of fundamental rights and upon the suggestions of the White Paper on European Governance, this article puts forward proposals for a better involvement of the ,civil society' in the system of the European Union. It offers a general diagnosis of the misunderstandings surrounding the notion of ,civil society' and the relationship of representative democracy to participatory democracy. It then draws some lessons from the experiment in deliberative democracy which led to the drafting of the Charter of fundamental rights. Finally, it focuses on the contribution the organisations of the civil society can make to good governance in the European Union. Altogether, the proposals presented tend to encourage a better structuration of the actors of the civil society. Such a structuration, the article concludes, although it is usually considered with suspicion even by those whom it would most benefit, must be seen instead as a condition for the effective exercise of whichever participatory rights might be granted to the organisations of the civil society. [source] From Local to Global to Transnational Civil Society: Re-Framing Development Perspectives on the Non-State SectorGEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 6 2007Cathy McIlwaine This article outlines the meanings of civil society covering theoretical and development policy debates. It traces the evolution of conceptualisations of civil society noting how diversity in type, function and scale are critical in understanding these changes. The role of non-governmental organisations within development policy is explored highlighting how the euphoria over civil society has been tempered over time, reflecting how Gramscian interpretations have begun to replace neo-Tocquevillian viewpoints. The article also examines how civil society operates over different scales from local to global to transnational, assessing and critiquing the rise of global civil society or what is more appropriately called ,transnational civil society'. The article finishes by highlighting the importance of diasporic civil society in relation to migrant groups especially from a development viewpoint as well as the need for more research on this issue. Conceptually, the article argues for a more sophisticated Gramscian interpretation of civil society that also recognises the importance of spatiality in the complex interpenetration between an increasingly extra-territorialised state and an increasingly transnational civil society. Thus, it presents a re-framing of development perspectives on the non-state sector from local to global to transnational scales. [source] Political Opposition in Civil Society: An Analysis of the Interactions of Secular and Religious Associations in Algeria and Jordan1GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 4 2008Francesco Cavatorta The lack of effective political parties is one of the dominant characteristics of modern Arab polities. The role of opposition to the authoritarian regimes is therefore left to a number of civil society organizations. This study examines the interactions among such groups in the context of the traditional transition paradigm and it analyses specifically how religious and secular organizations operate and interact. The empirical evidence shows that such groups, far from attempting any serious coalition-building to make common demands for democracy on the regime, have a competitive relationship because of their ideological differences and conflicting policy preferences. This strengthens authoritarian rule even in the absence of popular legitimacy. The article focuses its attention on Algeria and Jordan. [source] Civil Society and Democratically Accountable Global GovernanceGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 2 2004Jan Aart Scholte This article explores the ways and extents that civil society associations can bring greater public accountability to global governance. The analysis first reviews the growth of civil society engagement of global governance. Second, the article elaborates four general ways that civil society associations have promoted increased accountability in global governance: by increasing the public transparency of global governance operations; by monitoring and reviewing global policies; by seeking redress for mistakes and harms attributable to global regulatory bodies; and by advancing the creation of formal accountability mechanisms for global governance. Third, the article identifies six broad circumstances that have affected (and often limited) the extent of civil society achievements with respect to accountability in global governance. [source] Rights and Citizenship in Brazil: The Challenges for Civil SocietyIDS BULLETIN, Issue 1 2005Almir Pereira Júnior First page of article [source] The Role of Communication in Global Civil Society: Forces, Processes, ProspectsINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2001Edward Comor The author examines the concept of global civil society (GCS) through the use of theoretical tools and empirical evidence related to the study of International Communication. He demonstrates that scholarship on GCS tends to simplify the process through which information becomes knowledge and that the state system,GCS relationship often is presented in terms of an ahistorical power dichotomy. In relation to these problems, what the author calls "GCS progressives" tend to underplay political-economic factors shaping GCS, including the implications of structural power; they tend to emphasize the importance of spatial integration while neglecting related changes in temporal norms; and, more essentially, they often under-theorize the importance of socialization processes and relatively unmediated relationships in the ongoing construction of "reality." The author concludes that through a more focused analysis,concentrating on how new technologies can be used to organize nationally and locally, and on lifestyle changes associated with communications developments,more precise analyses and fruitful strategies for GCS progressives may emerge. [source] New Pathways in International Development: Gender and Civil Society in EU Policy , Edited by M. Lister and M. CarboneJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2007GIULIA PIETRANGELI No abstract is available for this article. [source] ,Europeanizing' Civil Society: NGOs as Agents of Political SocializationJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 4 2001Alex Warleigh As a strategy for tackling the ,democratic deficit', attention is increasingly shifting towards the ,Europeanization' of civil society, the latter being traditionally viewed as a means both to limit state power and to promote intra-citizenry solidarity. However, this attempted change requires in turn actors who are both able and willing to act as agents of political socialization in the context of EU policy-making. This article examines the emphasis placed by both EU actors and the current academic literature on NGOs as such agents. Drawing on an analysis of similar claims made in development policy, I isolate the main indicators of NGOs' ability to foster the Europeanization of civil society via political socialization and put forward seven key tests of their ability to carry out this function in the EU context. These are then evaluated against the results of original empirical investigations. I argue that NGOs are currently unsuited to the task of Europeanizing civil society thanks to their inability to promote the political socialization of their supporters. As a consequence that task requires EU-level institutional reform informed by iterated public dialogue, as well as change in the working practices of NGOs. [source] The Role of Trust in Channels of Strategic Communication for Building Civil SocietyJOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 4 2005Carl H. Botan In these turbulent times, development communication is a growing and important area of both academic research and practice. This article explores the role of strategic communication channels in the development of civil society in Bosnia. This case study reports the results of a survey that asked Bosnians about their levels of trust in government officials, alternative media, and state-controlled media outlets. The findings suggest that shortly after the war Bosnians had medium levels of trust in their communication channels, and when it comes to obtaining important information, it appears that alternative media were considered more trustworthy than either the state media or local government officials. Finally, political affiliation and ethnicity affect trust in communication channels in complex ways. [source] Civil Society or the State?: Recent Approaches to the History of Voluntary WelfareJOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2002Alan Kidd Since the 1970s a drift away from state corporatist solutions to social welfare problems has had its parallel in an academic rediscovery of the voluntary sector. Revived confidence in non,statutory approaches often assumes two things. Firstly, that voluntary action is a vital component in civil society and that civil society itself is an attribute of liberal democracy. These ideas are central to the perceived ,crisis of the welfare state'. They are also related to debates about political culture and the future of democracy with the institutions of civil society cast positively as ,schools of citizenship'. Secondly, it is frequently assumed that there is an opposition in principle between the voluntary and the statutory and in some quarters an assumption (reversing an earlier presumption about the rationality of state welfare) that voluntary action is the superior mechanism (at least morally). The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, I want to reflect on the revival of interest in the role of the institutions of civil society in the history of welfare provision. Second, I will survey some recent approaches to voluntary action and ,civil society'. Third, in the process of this survey I discuss the relevance of these approaches to the study of past states of welfare. [source] Government-Voluntary Sector Compacts: Governance, Governmentality, and Civil SocietyJOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2000John Morison In 1998 government and the main representatives of the voluntary sector in each of the four countries in the United Kingdom published ,compacts' on relations between government and the voluntary sector. These were joint documents, carrying forward ideas expressed by the Labour Party when in opposition, and directed at developing a new relationship for partnership with those ,not-for-profit organizations' that are involved primarily in the areas of policy and service delivery. This article seeks to use an examination of the compacts, and the processes that produced them and that they have now set in train, to explore some of the wider issues about the changing role of government and its developing relationships with civil society. In particular, it argues that the new partnership builds upon a movement from welfarism to economism which is being developed further through the compact process. Drawing upon a governmentality approach, and illustrating the account with interview material obtained from some of those involved in compact issues from within both government and those umbrella groups which represent the voluntary sector, an argument is made that this overall process represents the beginning of a new reconfiguration of the state that is of considerable constitutional significance. [source] "Bad Mothers" and the Threat to Civil Society: Race, Cultural Reasoning, and the Institutionalization of Social Inequality in a Venezuelan Infanticide TrialLAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 2 2000Charles L. Briggs First page of article [source] Policy Studies and Civil Society: A Centennial Debate1POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 3 2003Paul Rich First page of article [source] What's the Civil in Civil Society?POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2003Italy, Robert Putnam, the Republican Tradition Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work implies a conception of civil society with claims to republican ancestry. However, in four ways, he misses the more ,political' understanding of this Enlightenment category in republican writers, including his hero, Tocqueville. Where Putnam's civic community is spontaneous and voluntaristic, republicans emphasise the creation of civil society from above by state-building and broader political associations. Where his civic spirit is local, republicans stress polity-centred citizenship identification. Where Putnam's ,social capital' is a generalised, all-purpose resource with positive effects, modern republicans such as Tocqueville stress normative ambiguities of civic space and see the associational cradles of modern trust and solidarity as more demanding. Finally, where his civil society is a harmonious, ,functioning' place, republicans often stress conflict between citizens and between citizens and the state. A reconsideration of empirical and theoretical problems in his analysis suggests that a more republican conceptualisation of civil society would have facilitated different questions and more interesting answers. [source] Problems in the Theorisation of Global Civil SocietyPOLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 5 2002Gideon Baker Existing theories of global civil society are problematical for two reasons. First, they assume that transnational organisations can assist world-wide democratisation without questioning either the representativeness of such organisations, or their accountability, or the potentially negative ramifications of their actions for international political equality. Second, despite placing new emphasis on political agency outside of the state, many accounts of global civil society ultimately reproduce statist discourse by reducing action in global civil society to a struggle for rights. This misrepresents global civil society since arguments for rights are, inter alia, arguments for the state, whereas the agency of global civil society immanently questions the legitimacy of the state. [source] The Challenge of Strengthening Nonprofits and Civil SocietyPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2008Steven Rathgeb Smith The Winter Commission Report was centrally concerned with improving the performance of state and local governments. Since the issuance of the commission's report in 1993, the delivery of services by state and local government has been substantially changed by the growing role of nonprofit organizations in providing public services and representing citizen interests. As a result, state and local governments and nonprofit agencies are faced with complex governance challenges. The central argument of this paper is that despite the dramatic changes in the relationship between government and nonprofit organizations in recent years, the key tenets of the Winter Commission report,the need for improved training and education, greater transparency and accountability, more emphasis on performance, and improved citizen engagement,remain deeply relevant in improving the governance of the public services in an increasingly complex policy process and service delivery system at the state and local levels. [source] The Marketization of the Nonprofit Sector: Civil Society at Risk?PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2 2004Angela M. Eikenberry The public sector has increasingly adopted the methods and values of the market to guide policy creation and management. Several public administration scholars in the United States have pointed out the problems with this, especially in relation to the impact on democracy and citizenship. Similarly, nonprofit organizations are adopting the approaches and values of the private market, which may harm democracy and citizenship because of its impact on nonprofit organizations' ability to create and maintain a strong civil society. This article reviews the major marketization trends occurring within the nonprofit sector,commercial revenue generation, contract competition, the influence of new and emerging donors, and social entrepreneurship,and surveys research on their potential impact on nonprofit organizations' contributions to civil society. The article ends with a discussion of the significance of marketization in the nonprofit sector for public administration scholars and public managers. [source] The Freedom of Desire: Hegel's Response to Rousseau on the Problem of Civil SocietyAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2010Jeffrey Church The ever-growing body of literature on civil society can benefit from a return to the original theoretical articulation and defense of the concept in the work of G.W.F. Hegel. Specifically, this article suggests that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's influential critique of civil society remains unanswered and argues that Hegel responded with a sweeping and sympathetic institutional design that remains relevant today. Hegel agrees with Rousseau that commercial society aggravates the dissatisfaction of its members, and that educating individual desire through institutional design is necessary to solve this difficulty. However, modern states need not adopt Rousseau's extreme and impracticable solution. Hegel's concrete, market-based associations of civil society render desires satiable and elevate them to accord with the common good, while still maintaining the freedom and distinctness of a pluralistic modern society. [source] Frontiers: Histories of Civil Society and Nature by Michael R. RedcliftTHE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 1 2008DAVID WOOD No abstract is available for this article. [source] Literacy, Knowledge Production, and Grassroots Civil Society: Constructing Critical Responses to Neoliberal DominanceANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2009Erika MeinArticle first published online: 14 DEC 200 Within the context of neoliberal globalization, portrayals of "literacy" and "knowledge" are increasingly emphasized for their instrumental value for individuals and markets. At the same time, locally situated movements have emerged to challenge, resist, and transform these representations. This article examines a grassroots movement in Mexico, the Feria Pedagógica (Pedagogical Fair), as one such site of contestation. Grounded in nonmainstream notions of "civil society," this movement represents an alternative educational space where literacy practices are tied to the construction of counterhegemonic identities and epistemologies.[literacy, civil society, social movements, popular education, Mexico] [source] The Crisis of Social Reproduction among Migrant Workers: Interrogating the Role of Migrant Civil SocietyANTIPODE, Issue 1 2010Nina Martin Abstract:, Transformations in urban economies are leading to the growth of jobs where labor and employment laws are routinely violated. Workers in these jobs are subject to harsh conditions such as low wages, hazardous work sites, and retaliation for speaking up. Many of these workers are undocumented migrants who are in a weak position to make demands on their employers or to request government assistance. These workers often turn to migrant civil society organizations for help with the multiple conflicts they face at work. Drawing on case studies of nonprofit organizations in Chicago, this paper focuses on the role of such organizations in the social reproduction of the migrant workforce. I posit that such organizations are integral to the functioning of the informal economy because the wide range of programs and services that they provide are essential to the social reproduction of migrant workers. [source] Site Fights: Divisive Facilities and Civil Society in Japan and the West , By Daniel P. AldrichASIAN POLITICS AND POLICY, Issue 4 2010Mikyoung Kim No abstract is available for this article. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||