from http://www.martinshaw.org/civilsociety.htm
The origins of the concept of civil society lie in key phases of modernity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Then writers in classical philosophy and political economy began to distinguish systematically between the spheres of state and society. In feudal society, the same social relations between superiors and inferiors had embraced both production and family life, on the one hand, and political and military authority, on the other. With the dissolution of feudal relations, these two areas of social life became more clearly demarcated in modern conditions as ‘society’ and ‘state’. The term civil society was first used to distinguish a sphere in which social relations were based on the free association of individuals, rather than a fixed hierarchy of legal institutions. For classical writers like the philosopher Georg Hegel and the revolutionary theorist Karl Marx, civil society was an inclusive concept of ‘society minus the state’, and very definitely included what we would now call ‘the economy’. Civil society was defined, indeed, by the emergence of a distinct political economy in which individuals related to each other as independent agents rather than as people who filled prescribed social roles.
The major classical theorists had, however, different ideas about civil society and about its relation to the state. Hegel saw civil society as a sphere of contradictions which could be resolved in the higher institution of the state, which embodied the highest ethical ideals of society. Marx believed, in contrast, that civil society was a sphere of conflicts between competing private interests, and that far from being reconciled in the state, these conflicts would take the form of class struggles in which the state itself would be overthrown. (In Marx’s later work, the concept of civil society is largely replaced by that of the capitalist mode of production.)
Although these classical ideas of civil society are still influential, as we shall see, the concept has been refined by later writers in ways which have made it, while still a broad concept, arguably more relevant to contemporary social analysis. The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, writing in the 1930s, referred to civil society in a more specialised sense than that of ‘society minus the state’. He argued instead that ‘between the economic structure and the state with its legislation and coercion stands civil society’ (Gramsci, 1971). Civil society for Gramsci was a set of institutions through which society organised and represented itself autonomously from the state. Although representative institutions of the economic sphere, such as employers’ associations and trade unions, were among the institutions of civil society, there were also churches, parties, professional associations, educational and cultural bodies. The economic sphere itself, with its functional institutions (firms, corporations) responsible for organising production, was not on this definition part of civil society.
Gramsci built a comparative theory of political change on this concept of civil society. He argued that whereas in the East, where civil society was weak, revolution might have succeeded through a direct violent assault on the state (as in Russia in 1917), in the West, where civil society was strong, this would not be possible. The institutions of civil society formed the ‘outer earthworks’ of the state, through which the ruling classes maintained their ‘hegemony’ or dominance in society. It was necessary to transform civil society, indeed to create an alternative hegemony of the subordinate classes, before it would be possible to challenge state power.
Gramsci’s hegemonic theory of civil society saw transformation as a cultural, as well as political, process, and specified an important role for intellectuals. According to Gramsci, each class developed its own intellectual groupings. While some traditional groups, such as priests and lawyers, continued from previous phases of society, many new groups had been created ‘organically’ through the development of capitalism - managers, educators, social workers, etc. These groups, playing central roles in the institutions of civil society, contributed to maintaining the existing hegemony. A counter-hegemony, which Gramsci conceived of in Marxist terms as led by the working class, would require its own organic intellectuals and beliefs.
Gramsci’s ideas were newly influential in the 1970s, both among Western social-science academics and in inspiring the ‘Eurocommunist’ strategy of the Italian and some other West European Communist parties. Another strong stimulus to the development of civil society thinking came around the same time from oppositional thinkers in the Communist states of East-Central Europe. In an interesting advance on Gramsci’s ideas, many oppositionists believed that because the authoritarian character of the Communist regimes made a direct challenge to their legitimacy very difficult, it would be easier to develop civil society based on cultural institutions which made an indirect challenge to the values of the system.
In the repressive atmosphere of the late 1970s and early 1980s, even this was difficult - although in Poland the autonomous trade union Solidarity developed as a mass national movement. In the more liberal situation of the later 1980s, however, civil society mushroomed in many Communist countries. The growth of autonomous cultural and social institutions played the role of preparing the foundations for a challenge to political power - very much as Gramsci had argued. As Communism collapsed and competitive party politics developed, however, key intellectual elites often moved from civil society to parties and the state, leading to a crisis of civil society practice and thinking. Nevertheless, the more advanced Central European countries, especially, are characterised in the late 1990s by much more extensive civil societies based on voluntary associations than was the case a decade earlier, although the political significance of these civil societies has changed.
Implicit in these ideas of civil society was the notion of it as a sphere of peaceful civility in contrast to the coercion, authoritarianism and violence of non-democratic states. At the end of the twentieth century the development of civil society is coming to be seen, therefore, as a significant criterion of the development of democracy. Democracy is seen as involving not merely the formal establishment of certain rights, institutions and procedures - important as these are - but also the consolidation of the social relations which support these. These supports include the development of an educated middle class and a framework of civil institutions which can support democracy. Just as in former Communist states, so in many countries of the ‘Third World’: as democratisation has advanced in the last decade of the twentieth century, the creation of civil society is widely viewed as a concomitant of democratic change.
Similarly in the West, the strength of civil society is often seen as a criterion of democratic health and stability. A central question in Western analysis, however, is the role of mass media in civil society. Traditional representative institutions of civil society, such as trade unions, parties and churches, have decayed in many Western societies, with membership and participation rates often (although not always) in decline. Even where some of these institutions remain strong, they exercise their representative functions to a large degree through mass media, above all television. Participation in Western civil societies (and democracies) increasingly depends on the openness of communications media. Media can be seen both as constituting the framework of contemporary civil society and as powerful actors within it. The centralized mass media of the early twentieth century are partially giving way to more participatory media, in which civil society is renewed.
There are key differences between media and other institutions, to do with the informational character of much media activity and the quasi-instantaneous communication between communicators and audiences. Most other institutions largely take for granted the information which their members or audience possess and are more concerned with influencing the value framework within which information is evaluated. Media, on the other hand, are always heavily concerned with communicating information, and have highly divergent relationships to evaluation. Much television eschews open commitment to value-frameworks (except those concerned with information), while at the other extreme, many newspapers are highly committed to propagandising particular values. In participatory new media like the Internet, a diversity of both information sources and opinions transforms these tensions.
Frequency of communication between media and audiences is another key differentiator between them and other institutions. Many newspapers publish daily, and television and radio broadcast continuously, sometimes updating news and interpretation hourly or even more frequently. Computer communication is virtually instantaneous. Political and religious leaders, educators, movement activists and other civil leaders, on the other hand, communicate with their audiences intermittently and update their analyses of specific situations episodically; they are not required in the same way to inform or comment regularly on any given situation. A related difference is that media news analysis claims, implicitly or explicitly, to provide a total context of information relevant to given situations (whether or not media do this is, of course, another matter). The views of political and religious leaders, educators, activists and others are ‘parts’ while the media provide the ‘whole’ picture. In this sense media contextualise and relativise the outputs of other institutions.
The second major contribution of twentieth-century analysts was an emphasis on the most dynamic, creative side of civil society -- informal networks, initiatives and social movements, as distinct from more formal voluntary associations and institutions and from class organizations (political parties, unions). Social movements articulate new social concerns and projects; they generate new values and collective identities. In struggles over democratization, they seek to reform not only the polity, but also the institutions of civil society itself.
The final key contribution in this century has been the communicative, deliberative conception of the "public sphere," developed primarily by Jurgen Habermas and his followers. The public sphere is where people can discuss matters of mutual concern as peers, and learn about facts, events, and the opinions, interests, and perspectives of others. Discourse on values, norms, laws, and policies generates politically relevant public opinion. These discussions can occur within various units of civil society (thus, we can speak of multiple "public spheres" or "civil publics"). But there is also a larger public sphere that mediates among the various mini-publics that emerge within and across associations, movements, religious organizations, clubs, local organizations of concerned citizens, and informal social networks in the creation of public opinion.
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Victor Perez-Diaz in ‘The Public Sphere and a European Civil Society’, applies CS to the problem of European Community to offset the current preoccupation with the economic and political dimension of unification. According to Diaz, solidarity and trust upon which the construction of a democratic European community depends has to have a vivid European public sphere. This sphere can be created by intensifying public discourses and dialogue about compelling contemporary issues – such as economic issues – within the framework of individual nation states. CS means to him an ideal type referring to a set of political and social institutions characterised by responsible government, subject to the rule of law, free and open markets, plurality of voluntary associations and a sphere of public debate. European situation only partly corresponds to the ideal type.
European CS needs public sphere, namely, a critical mass of concerned citizens who discuss issues, support policy as a precondition for a responsible European public authority. He claims that the content of public sphere should be political and its development essential for the creation of Europe’s unity.
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