Analysing State–Civil Society Associations Relationship: The Case of Lebanon

Civil society organizations in Lebanon have a long history, pre-dating even the existence of the Lebanese state itself, which has directly shaped their major phases of development since its creation. Based on the social origins theory and using the framework developed by Marchetti and Tocci (Peace Secur Former Pac Rev Peace Secur Glob Chang 21:201–217, 2009), this paper analyses the relationships that have developed between the state and civil society organizations in Lebanon. The main argument presented in this paper is that the scope of work of civil society organizations, in addition to their freedom of action, is directly linked to the social, political and economic development of the state. The main conclusion of this paper is that a new social contract should be forged between associations and the state in Lebanon, one that would allow them to carry out their functions properly.     

Inoperative Community in Post‐Authoritarian South Korea: Football Fandom,Political Mobilization and Civil Society

South Korea’s dynamic civil society developed from the democratic struggle against the military dictatorship in the 1980s and early 1990s. The period of political liberalisation that began in 1992 saw the emergence of new voices and social forces, and a new “netizen” culture of Internet users. This article explores the new social, cultural and political landscapes of the country that were made possible by self‐organising communities of the public actualising their potential for occasions of collective mobilisation and subverting the powers of dominant authorities. The empirical focus is on two events that marked the post‐authoritarian political culture of South Korea: the Red Devil phenomenon during the 2002 football World Cup, characterised by passionate support, civic pride and a rudimentary cosmopolitanism, and the anti‐impeachment protests of 2004. These key examples of mass voluntary organisation and mobilisation, founded on the desire for association and enactment of the sense of civil sovereignty, and borrowing from decades of popular struggle and resistance against the state, have expressed the love of community, the intimate communication and the being‐together of what Nancy calls inoperative community. Standing in opposition to the overarching authority of the state, inoperative communities emerge through the self‐actualisation of new subjectivities. This article investigates how, through play, transgression and protest, these inoperative communities have reshaped the culture and society of South Korea in the post‐authoritarian era.     

Characterising civil society and its challenges in post-apartheid South Africa

Since South Africa’s transition to democracy, civil society has been considered a critical component of new inclusive “democratic” societies, acting to ensure human rights for all. Government and donor agencies require the incorporation of this sector within project documents and programmes. However, is civil society merely a loosely defined term used to satisfy the requirements of project proposals and interests of the state, donors and big business, while not directly addressing the concerns of citizens subjected to macroeconomic risks (e.g. industrial pollution, unemployment and service delivery)? Since the transition, it is mainly established civil society organisations that have become well resourced and who have developed collaborative relationships with the state and industry, which has eroded their accountability to and support from the marginalised communities they claim to serve. Can such organisations then claim to be part of an “authentic” civil society striving for inclusive development? By reviewing contemporary and historical literature on civil society, and through empirical work, this paper argues that there has been a shift in the conception of civil society since the transition, with established forms of support for the grassroots remaining doubtful. Civil society has not effectively engaged with the grassroots to project their concerns about macroeconomic risks, largely due to integration into government/donor institutions. Fragmentation within the grassroots arena has also limited coherent actions against dominant groups. Although civil society can support the grassroots to address their concerns through formal activities, for example, by employing legal strategies, there is no guarantee of success. Connections between an “authentic” civil society and coherent grassroots actions engaging in a combination of strategies (formal and informal) will be required to achieve true democracy.     

Robin M. Williams Lecture, 1994: Taking society seriously

Civil society provides essential balance to the rising power of national states and market economies. Particularly in the United States, however, the economy and state are squeezing civil society, with negative consequences. One result is that market rationality supplants other moralities, with attendant changes in social practices. Examples are offered from education, health care, and federal tax policy. All three legs of the metaphorical social tripod of civil society, economy, and the state need to be strong. Institutions of civil society sustain individuals and societies, but require structural and cultural support if they are to complement and counterbalance the logic and practices of economy and state.This paper was presented as the First Annual Robin M. Williams, Jr., Lecture at the University of Delaware, February 24, 1994; the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, March 19, 1994; and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina, March 28, 1994.     

The crisis of waged work and the option of a universal basic income grant for South Africa

ABSTRACT

Waged work is widely seen as a sufficient basis for meeting basic needs, achieving social inclusion and realizing essential social rights. Yet waged work that provides a livable income on reasonably secure terms is rare in ‘developing’ economies and increasingly scarce in ‘developed’ economies. This trend is likely to persist and worsen as the disruptive impacts of economic volatility and climate change intensify and labour market restructuring continues. Aggravating the impact is the diminishing access to livelihood options outside the wage economy. South Africa is an extreme example of this trend, with a very large proportion of the working age population superfluous to the formal economy, high levels of poverty and severe inequality. This paper describes this crisis at the global level and then specifically in South Africa, before considering the option of a universal basic income grant (UBIG). It examines the critiques and the potential merits and risks of such an intervention. To realize its transformative potential, a UBIG would have to be deployed as part of a broad transformation strategy that is led by an active state and driven by a mobilized civil society.     

The Polish Social Enterprise Sector Vis-à-Vis the Welfare Regime: Following on the Solidarity Movement?

This paper presents the development of the enterprise sector and the welfare regime in Poland, dominated by two opposing trends originating from the country’s recent history: remnants of the “Communist welfare state” and liberal tendencies that came after the political and economic transformation in 1989. The growing civil society that supplements a deficient welfare system finds its roots in the peaceful underground Solidarity movement of the 1980s which played a great role in liberating Poland. After the political turnover, the Solidarity’s mission-driven approach not only survived, but also helped shape Poland’s contemporary civil society. The outlined mechanisms seem to be significant for understanding the transformation of social economy and the welfare state concept in post-communist Europe. In our paper, we identify six mechanisms underlying the Solidarity movement, which, when subsequently implemented by social entrepreneurs, has guaranteed the success of their organizations. We will also characterize the current welfare state in Poland, as well as the role of social enterprises in filling the gaps and addressing the shortcomings of the welfare state. Several case studies will illustrate the latter.     

Civil Society Opposition to Nonferrous Metals Mining in Montana

This paper discusses the opposition of civil society to nonferrous metals mining in Montana. The mineral resources and mining history of Montana are discussed, as is the vibrant civil society of that state. Montana’s civil society has opposed mining due to its environmental effects, particularly upon areas of high conservation value. This opposition has involved litigation and the implementation of a ban on the use of cyanide by the mining industry. The paper concludes with a discussion of whether this opposition to mining has damaged the economy of the state and Montana’s future as an example of the “New West,” wherein amenities based growth act as the principal agent of economic activity.     

Family Contributions to Self Help Schooling in Malawi and Kenya*

Abstract In the 1980s and 1990s African societies responded to reduced state educational capacity by expanding the reach of civil society‐non‐state societal organizations that sought to organize individuals and mobilize local resources for education and development. In this paper, I argue that rural African families were differentially prepared to respond to these changes in state‐society relations. I develop a model of family contributions to self help schooling that integrates a range of theoretical perspectives emphasizing the importance of social capital, family economy, family background, and family structure. Then, I utilize original, household survey data to apply the model across diverse national and regional contexts. One major analytical finding points to the importance of family memberships in local civil for predicting self help schooling. Another contribution of the paper is that it demonstrates both similarities and differences in factors influencing family contributions to self help schooling across nations and regions.     

Power,poets and the people: Mozambican voices interpreting history

This article analyses the relationship between the state and the nascent African trade unions in South Africa between 1918 and 1948. It shows how the government's attempts to deal with African workers separately from white workers became increasingly difficult during this period. Pressures from African unions themselves, from liberal groups and from the increasingly important role played by Africans in the economy, forced the state to seek a coherent way of handling African trade unions. The paper shows how the state was divided over this issue, with Native Affairs and Labour Department officials conflicting with each other and with government ministers. Although the cabinet held ultimate power within the state, civil servants played a significant role in shaping government policy and determining how it was implemented. The paper concludes that, although circumstances have changed greatly since 1948, the pre‐apartheid era has important lessons for state/organised labour relations in the post‐apartheid South Africa which is currently taking shape.     

Rural-Urban Differences and Their Amelioration

South Korean society is in transition toward a multicultural society. Integrating multicultural education into current citizenship education is challenging for the society. Historically, many national tragedies have created the unique characteristics of what being Korean means. South Korean social studies curriculum emphasized that Korea is a monolithic society with one language, one history, and one ethnicity. In recent years, however, the number of foreigners living in South Korea dramatically increases because of work, study, and marriage. As they become be members of Korean society, it is necessary that South Koreans acknowledge diverse groups in the society and revise a long-held belief about who we, as Koreans, are. To this end, the Korean social studies curriculum should include more information about as well as respect and promote ethnic, cultural, and social diversity. Social studies teachers should attempt various activities to promote students’ understanding of current social changes in South Korea.     

Manufacturing Kinship in a Nation Divided: An Ethnographic Study of North Korean Refugees in South Korea

The South Korean government continues to practice variants of what Stephan Castles (1995) calls ‘differential exclusion’, in which citizenship in the nation state for North Koreans does not confer membership in civil society. For new arrivals from North Korea, many of whom have developed a distinct distrust of anything governmental, interaction with representatives of the South Korean state bares a chilling resemblance to that which they left behind in the North.

This article argues that for newly-arrived North Koreans the failure at state level does not mean they are entirely cast adrift, as religious and secular institutions within civil society are shouldering more of the burden of adaptation for the newcomers. This article endeavours to further our understanding of the significance of these groups as spaces where, for persons in exile, the meaning of home is recreated through acts of intimate exchange and relationships are formed that have the potential to become a form of pseudo-kinship.     

Civil Society Organizations in the Informal Settlements of Buenos Aires: Service Providers and Forces for Change

The objective of this paper is to analyze the historical roots and contribution to human development of civil society organizations in marginalized communities based on fieldwork undertaken in seven informal settlements of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The paper provides evidence of a dense network of organizations whose principal function is the provision of social services, especially food assistance, through a complementary relationship with the state. The current effectiveness of the settlements’ representative organizations—the principal vehicles through which community members voice their collective demands—is limited by a mix of factors intimately related to civil society–state relations, including irregularities in election processes, conflicts between organizations, and lack of transparency in the allocation of public resources. The paper concludes that true empowerment of these communities to act as a unified force for change requires the strengthening of neighborhood organizations and greater government openness to civil society participation in public decision-making processes.     

“It’s not just talk”: ideas,discourse, and the prospects for transformational change in a homogenous nation-state

ABSTRACT

Despite decades of large-scale immigration, systemic and institutionalized racism and ethnonationalism remain very strong in South Korea. One reason is obvious: South Korea is the quintessential homogeneous nation-state. Many observers, in fact, believe that it is one of the few societies in the world that is naturally homogenous. For this and other reasons, the prospect that South Korea can or will transform from homogenous nation-state to multicultural society is generally given very short shrift. I argue, however, that small but extremely significant steps toward a multicultural society have already been made and that the key reason is due to the introduction of ‘multiculturalism’ as an idea and discourse in Korean society. While a focus on ideas/discourse is hardly new, this paper contends that it has been seriously underappreciated, particularly in analyses of South Korea, as a cause of institutional stability on the one hand, and of institutional change and transformation, on the other hand.     

Enhancing community capacity: Roles of perceived bonding and bridging social capital and public relations in community building

This study examined whether two types of perceived social capital – bonding and bridging – can affect individuals’ belief in community capacity in the context of a corporate community relations program to develop rural areas in South Korea. The results of the study's Web survey showed that perceived community capacity to resolve problems was significantly affected by their perception of both bonding and bridging social capital. The findings suggest that social capital serves as a mechanism that can foster community capacity through norms of interaction, reciprocity, and trust as aspects of civil society.     

Crowding‐in: how Indian civil society organizations began mobilizing around climate change

This paper argues that periodic waves of crowding‐in to ‘hot’ issue fields are a recurring feature of how globally networked civil society organizations operate, especially in countries of the Global South. We elaborate on this argument through a study of Indian civil society mobilization around climate change. Five key mechanisms contribute to crowding‐in processes: (1) the expansion of discursive opportunities; (2) the event effects of global climate change conferences; (3) the network effects created by expanding global civil society networks; (4) the adoption and innovation of action repertoires; and (5) global pressure effects creating new opportunities for civil society. Our findings contribute to the world society literature, with an account of the social mechanisms through which global institutions and political events affect national civil societies, and to the social movements literature by showing that developments in world society are essential contributors to national mobilization processes.     

Promoting human rights in the era of globalization and interventions: the changing spaces of struggle

A new cartography of geopolitical and corporate interests is reshaping the international order after September 11, calling into question the state's ability to secure fundamental rights for its citizens and to preserve participatory democracy. If civil society tends, among human rights activists, to be the preferred venue to articulate human rights concerns against the state and other powerful entities, one may wonder whether civil society has not become an arena dominated by consumerism or the pursuit of security. With the weakening of social forces for human rights in civil society as a buffer between the state and the private realm, how can we protect individuals from deepening incursions by the state and the globalized market in our age of war against terror? This article considers these issues, by placing them in historic context. More specifically, it examines how selected events since the Second World War have transformed the spaces which support and shape campaigns for human rights struggle.     

Reframing the History of the Competition Concept: Neoliberalism,Meritocracy, Modernity

This paper reframes the concept of competition, arguing that recent tendencies to frame it in the context of neoliberalism are too narrow to grasp its full significance. We need to see how it operates well beyond the capitalist economy, as a social and not just theoretical concept. I contextualise it in a deeper history, going back to the eighteenth century, beginning with an empirical examination of the development of the concept in English language dictionaries and encyclopaedias, using a method of ‘conceptual history’. I show how the concept, its grammatical forms, and characteristic associations have evolved substantially since the eighteenth century. This finding is placed in a broader explanatory context, arguing that it is the combined rise of a set of core institutions of modernity, not just capitalism but also democracy, adversarial law, science, and civil society, that deeply embeds competition in the modern world. The decline of aristocratic and religious authority, and the national subordination of martial power, opened the way for more ‘liberal’ forms of society in which authority is routinely contested through competition, across economy, politics, culture and beliefs. Appreciating this is a necessary step towards truly grappling with the effects of competition on modern life.     

Civil Society or the State?: Recent Approaches to the History of Voluntary Welfare

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.     

Achievements of and challenges facing the Korean Disabled People’s Movement

Abstract

This paper provides a critical review of the development of the disabled people’s movement in South Korea since 1945, reflecting both its achievements and the obstacles it has faced. In particular, political positions and responses to the movement’s agitation against socio-cultural discrimination and inequality are discussed. Further, three key theoretical foundations of the movement are examined in order to describe the diversity inherent therein. This paper concludes that the disabled people’s movement has heavily influenced the values, norms, and systems of Korean society, but it has predominantly focused on integrating disability issues into policy and legislation, not on changing society and culture. Hence, the Korean Disabled People’s Movement is currently facing many challenges that are major threats towards its future development.     

NGOization,Foreign Funding,and the Nicaraguan Civil Society

A substantial section of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the global South depend on foreign funds to conduct their operations. This paper explores how the availability of foreign funding affects their downward accountability, abilities to effect social change, and their relative influence in relation to traditional grassroots, membership-based organizations (GROs), which tend not to receive such funding. Drawing on a case study of Nicaragua, we challenge the notion that foreign funding of domestic NGOs leads to the evolution of civil society organizations, which have incentives and abilities to organize the marginalized sections of society in ways to effect social change in their interests. Instead, we find that foreign funding and corresponding professionalization of the NGO sector creates dualism among domestic civil society organizations. Foreign funding enhances the visibility and prestige of the “modern” NGO sector over traditional GROs. This has grave policy implications because foreign-funded NGOs tend to be more accountable to donors than beneficiaries and are more focused on service delivery than social change-oriented advocacy.