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Contributions from
the Column
Media
Hunger and globalisation
Civil society – a changing concept
France’s own brand of development policy
Comprehensive, but not innovative
07/2006 |
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Civil society -
a changing concept
Michael Edwards:
Civil Society.
Cambridge, Polity Press 2003, 152 p., £14.99, ISBN 0-7456-3133-9
Few authors succeed to explain the main ideas and debates related to the concept of civil society in such a concise yet lucid manner. Covering a lot of historical ground, Edwards recognises that any attempt to define this powerful leitmotif is bound to be heavily disputed.
He identifies three major schools of thought: In the “neo-Tocquevillian” school, the focus is on associational life and civil society is understood as a constituent part of society, alongside the political sphere and the market.
Perhaps less in contrast but complimentary to the first concept is the second school, which seeks to determine how to arrive at a “good society”. Such a society is seen as “strong and civil”, depending on what citizens do voluntarily and why they do it.
Just as the first school of thought, the “good society” propagators adopt a three-sector model of society, embracing a somewhat ahistoric and idealistic understanding of the boundaries between the sectors. “Good society” theory has difficulties to account for the role of the state and for persistent inequalities in civil society.
Both traditional schools of thought find themselves in a bind: they set out to promote democratisation by way of gradualist reforms but fail to offer any approach capable to serve as a counterweight to a democracy-eroding, globalised capitalist system.
Edwards’ third school of thought is the theory of civil society as the public sphere. It attempts to address the inadequacies of the other lines of thought, notably the preoccupation with social equilibrium and inability to explain radical social change. Clearly, in discussing the threats to the public sphere Edwards is at his best. For example he points out the problem of “the privatisation of the 'public' in every sphere of life and the 'pillaging of what belongs to all of us' in favour of private interests”.
In chapter five Edwards attempts to provide a synthesis by building on the strong elements of each school of thought. At its basis is the recognition that “civil society is simultaneously a goal to aim for, a means to achieve it and a framework for engaging with each other about ends and means”.
However, the critical weakness of Edwards’ synthesis is its inability to provide a suitable basis for challenging today's rule of neo-imperial globalisation. His concept of civil society remains bound to the straitjacket of the nation state. Arguably, the notion of national sovereignty today is at odds with democratic aspirations and practices that are expressed outside and beyond the classical nation state.
To his credit, Edwards does point to the potential of global civil society as networks for collective action. However, he sees this as a far and distant possibility: Global civil society for Edwards, however desirable, remains an embryonic social movement, often merely issue-driven.
Almost in the last sentence of the book Edwards comes to acknowledge that 21st century manifestations of global civil society action (such as the World Social Forum) are expressions of alternative forms of politics, “a new kind of society”. But its revolutionary qualities are not recognised. Although informative and insightful, Edwards’ discussion of civil society is at best an elaboration of a quickly mutating concept.
Glenn Brigaldino
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