Fighting Corruption without the State: Civil Society Agency and the “Otokoto Saga”

The violent outburst of Owerri's civil society in September 1996 arguably signaled a new order in the fighting of corruption – through self‐help efforts. This outburst was a demonstration of public discontent over the activities of a few rich citizens in that town who were believed to have been involved in varied corrupt practices in making “fast” wealth. It was also a vociferous indictment on the State and its agents for ineptitude in fighting corruption, and complicity in criminal acts. Drawing from both primary and secondary sources in social research, this study critically examines the chain of events preceding, and the dynamics of the developments surrounding the societal conflicts in Owerri, Nigeria, popularly dubbed “Otokoto Saga.” It analyzes the varied dimensions of the societal conflicts, the authentic roles of civil society agency in a “self‐help strategy” and the responses of the State (and its actors) to the inadvertent eruptions. It further shows how Owerri's civil society agency “forced” the state to take critical steps towards the restoration of sanity in the town. The paper argues that civil society's critical awareness of its own roles in maintaining a corrupt‐free society was instrumental to their violent reactions. It concludes that deep‐seated fear and frustration underlined the reactions of the civil society, while moral panic and outrage triggered such reactions.     

Democracy,civil society and the media in Africa in the Nineties. a discussion of the emergence and relevance of some analytical concepts for the understanding of the situation in Africa

The article argues that the relationship between state and civil society in an African context constitute a dialiectic between a weak state and a weak civil society. The question of the seperation between state and civil society in Africa cannot be understood apart from recent changes in Eastern Europe, with the demise of communism on the one hand, and the rise of neo‐liberalism on the other. Also, the state/society problematic in Africa is linked to the inheritance from the European experience of the nineteenth century, and to the economic restructuring programmes of the 1980s and the 1990s. Civil society in Africa is seen as constituted by a variety of social movements which through their forms of communication tap in on and recreate existing and new collective identities. The article gives special attention to the case in Zimbabwe and the role of the media and civil society there.     

Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization of “Civil Society” in Africa: State–Civil Society Relations in Ghana from 1982–2000

Despite civil society’s ambiguity, many scholars tend to focus on the economic reasons for the apparent conflict between state and civil society, with little or no attention to the conceptual differences that may be influencing the behavior of public and civil society actors. Using Ghana under J. J. Rawlings as a backdrop, this article argues that state–civil society relations are partly shaped by the divergent conceptualizations of “civil society” held by state and civil society actors. It suggests that the issue is not just the African state’s limited understanding of the multiple roles that civil society organizations can legitimately play in the polity; it is also civil society’s lack of recognition and acknowledgment of the legitimate functions of the African state.     

Sponsoring Civil Society: State and Community Movement in Taiwan*

This article contributes to the growing literature on the synergic production of civil society in newly democratized countries. State sponsorship can be effective when clientelism, as a form of social dominance, continues to frustrate purposive organization from below. Three elements are necessary for this scenario. First, a group of reform‐minded officials must be able to pursue an independent agenda that deviates from local elites. Second, reformers have to create new institutional avenues to channel resources downward by bypassing local politicians. Lastly, civil society organizations must be capable of effectively responding to the initiatives from above. I use Taiwan’s community movement to understand the logic and consequences of sponsoring civil society. State endorsement is critical to legitimatize community organizations’ presence in local politics. With a detailed analysis of a local case, the Qiaodou community movement, I argue that state sponsorship is critical for the growth of civil society organizations. Sponsored movement activism maintains its political independence by leveraging the incoherence in bureaucratic division of labor, and its professional expertise offers an advantageous bargaining position when facing officials.     

Pacification of Rio's Favelas and the “Pacification of the Pacification Police”: The Role of Coordinating Brokerage in Police Reform

Rio de Janeiro's drug dealer–dominated favelas are territories where the state lacks the monopoly of violence. They have historically been sites of sporadic and violent police operations. Rio's favela “pacification” program aimed to consolidate state control via the establishment of a Pacification Police Unit (UPP). This proximity policing program initially experienced mixed results in different “pacified” favelas. I take advantage of this state intervention at the urban margins to ask, what explains the positive reception of this policing initiative in some communities but not others? I concentrate my fieldwork in two communities sharing a UPP that represented extreme cases of success in terms of the program's reception by residents. I find that the coordinating brokerage of respected local organizations helps acculturate police to the community and minimize offensive police behavior, thereby “pacifying the Pacification Police.” Residents are receptive to these resocialized police who comply with local norms of respect. This police‐reforming brokerage is possible due to the high level of closure in the local network and due to a vibrant local community with a strong history of organizing. My findings emphasize the importance of considering the role of local civil society in police reform at the urban margins.     

The Development of Social Economy in South Korea: Focusing on the Role of the State and Civil Society

The existing literature has claimed that the state-backed social enterprises in South Korea could be degenerated since the South Korean civil society is not advanced enough to safeguard them against the isomorphic pressure wielded simultaneously by the state and the market. Taking this claim seriously, this paper examines the recent development of social economy in South Korea. Based on the considerable changes in the long-standing statist model of non-profit sector since the late 1990s, the enormous impact of 2011 FAC on the civil society and social economy, and more frequent collaborative effort between the local governments and civil society organizations since 2012, this paper claims that the development of social economy in South Korea has recently shifted from dominance of state power to a mixture of top-down and bottom-up approaches.     

Engendering Citizenship,Feminizing Civil Society

Abstract

In this paper, I describe how feminists in countries of the Middle East and North Africa are challenging their second-class citizenship largely institutionalized in patriarchal family laws-and are calling for an extension of their civil, political, and social rights. I use the term “feminist” to denote de jureand de factofeminists working to advance women's rights. The paper seeks to make theoretical sense of contemporary rights-based movements and discourses in the region through an application of theories of citizenship. It highlights the role of women's organizations in the regional call for democratization, civil society, and citizenship and it provides an empirical content to the discussion of citizenship, state, and civil society. Data and information are gleaned from a close reading of the literature by and on women's organizations in the region, and from personal observations and interviews.     

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.     

Democratizing States and the Use of History*

Abstract A pervasive anti‐statism often blinds us to the democratic victories in the past and thus to possibilities in our future. This article argues that big government can democratize society and uses historical investigation to make the point. The study of history emancipates us from the tyranny of the present. Progressive social change has come about in the United States and elsewhere as combined bottom‐up, top‐down initiatives. I present two such cases of democratization during the New Deal era. The first is about rural sociologists' participatory‐action research with local citizens for policy planning. This program, while short‐lived, fed into the creation of the field of community development. The other is a land‐reform experiment among poor African Americans. In the 1960s these “resettlement communities” became local strongholds of the civil‐rights movement, and their descendants carry on the struggle today. I use these two historical instances to show that big states as well as social scientists have been effective agents of democracy, and suggest that they can be again. History then enable us to re‐imagine, re‐new, and re‐form our democratic tradition of rural sociology.     

Approaches to civil society in authoritarian states: The case of China

Both civil society in China and research on Chinese civil society have developed profoundly over the last three decades. Research on Chinese civil society can be classified into two categories: a structure‐oriented approach and an agency‐oriented approach. Both approaches acknowledge the state's dominant position in restricting the political space for civil society engagement, but they differ in their understanding of state–civil society relations. A key concern within the structure‐oriented approach is to analyze how the autonomy of civil society organizations is shaped by their structural position vis‐à‐vis the state. Agency‐oriented scholars, on the other hand, reject the analytical focus on structural autonomy. Instead, they build on a more nuanced understanding of the authoritarian yet nonmonolithic context in China and analyze how civil society organizations develop specific strategies to be able to operate within their restricted political space. In particular, agency‐oriented scholars have analyzed two ways in which organizations exercise agency: by strategically developing formal or informal ties with state actors and by bringing their engagement into the public sphere to raise awareness and express their voice. What could be further developed in the agency‐oriented approach is, however, a deeper understanding of the political dimensions of civil society agency.     

Rural Parentage and Labor Market Disadvantage in a Sub‐Saharan Setting: Sources and Trends

Abstract High unemployment in many developing countries is intensifying job competition and raising concern for the employment prospects of vulnerable groups, including children of rural parents. This paper examines the trends and sources in employment disadvantage associated with rural parentage in Cameroon. In documenting the sources of inequality, the study moves beyond a “consensus versus conflict” dichotomy, and instead uses regression decomposition to estimate the relative contributions of both perspectives. It also uses fixed‐effects methods to examine the importance of unobserved family influences that have been understudied in previous research. In documenting historical change in rural disadvantage, the study distinguishes between long‐term trends and shorter‐term economic fluctuations. Findings show that although rural parentage does not create a disadvantage in off‐farm employment as a whole, it does so within the formal sector. This disadvantage is predominantly due to rural‐urban differences in returns to schooling rather than levels of schooling. Disadvantage in schooling has been declining over time but, interestingly, these gains may stall during prosperous times, as these tend to inordinately benefit urban children.     

The social welfare impact of privatisation in sub‐Saharan Africa: A discussion

Against the background of rising levels of anxiety around the state of the social fabric in South African society, this paper explores the disjuncture between the post-apartheid state’s policy discourse on social cohesion and the local discourses of South African residents in 24 focus groups held in townships around the country, which reveal significant levels of social fragmentation and intense contestation regarding the new regime of rights. The paper argues that the state’s policy discourse on social cohesion is part of an attempt to manage a complex social environment in terms of a project of developmental nation-state building that seeks to constitute the social domain as a normative realm of imagined homogeneity in which citizenship is premised on constitutional values. I argue that while the state’s concern with the ‘social’ relates to the critical question of solidarity in modern democracies, this has led, in the South African context, to the constitution of the social domain as a site of pathology, divorced from the broader political and economic relations of power in which this ‘pathology’ is embedded. At issue in this interaction between state and local discourses on the question of solidarity are the terms of membership in the political community. Who will and will not be part of the ‘new’ nation?     

Civil society,social accountability and service delivery in Zimbabwe

Post‐2000, the deterioration of Zimbabwe's socioeconomic and political conditions is widely acknowledged as phenomenal and unprecedented. Consequently, government and local authorities are struggling to provide basic services. At the same time, civil society initiatives are promoting transparency and accountability in service delivery. The article explains how civil society coalitions and citizens are promoting and demanding accountability in the delivery of public services by local authorities. In particular, it focuses on four critical issues; namely local authority–citizen engagement, social accountability focus areas, social accountability tools and emerging social accountability issues. The article concludes that civil society‐led social accountability initiatives are effective under conditions of civil society capacity, institutionalization of social accountability by local authorities, and negotiating local political dynamics.     

‘Luckily it was only for 10 minutes’: Ideology,discursive positions,and language socialization in family interaction1

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of family interaction concerning two narratives told by Julie (nine years old) and Emma (11) during dinner‐table conversations in their respective homes. Based on their different notions of the institutional process of schooling, these two families interactionally and narratively shape thematically similar events in different ways. A focus on obedience, authority and issues of right and wrong provides Julie with the discursive position of a subordinate novice, whereas issues of autonomy, choice and individual responsibility enable Emma to take up the position of self‐assured expert. Both children are encouraged to reflect upon their own conduct and evaluate the implications of the choices guiding their actions. The paper demonstrates how moral order is interactionally constructed, and how language socialization processes are ideologically charged. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of such processes for children's immediate and future orientation to the institutional practices of school and society.     

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.     

Unsettling connections: transnational networks,development and African home associations

With the transnational turn in the social sciences attention has now turned to ‘global civil society’, ‘transnational civil society’, ‘transnational networks’ and, most recently, ‘migrant’ or ‘diasporic civil society’. Claims are being made about the developmental potential of these new configurations of civil society, and the global connections forged by migrant and diaspora associational life have been reified into things called ‘networks’ for the purpose of enrolling them into development policy. In this article, we challenge the network model through an analysis of transnational Cameroonian and Tanzanian home associations. The idea of a network suggests an overly robust and ordered set of linkages for what are in effect often loose and transient connections. African home associations draw attention to the historically‐embedded and mundane ways in which forms of associational life can be ‘transnational’ outside the formalized structures and Eurocentric development hierarchies created by international NGOs and other development institutions. Although they form largely invisible connections operating outside these hierarchies, African home associations unsettle assumptions about the geography of civil society and its relationship with development. Close attention to the histories and geographies of African home associations reveals that power and agency more often lie with migrants and elites within Africa than with the transnational diaspora.     

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.     

Migration Dynamics,Entrepreneurship, and African Development: Lessons from Malawi

Using data from Malawi, this study situates the discourse on migration, entrepreneurship, and development within the context of Africa's social realities. It examines self‐employment differences among three groups of migrants and corresponding group differences in agricultural and non‐agricultural self‐employment. International migrants are found to be more engaged in self‐employment than internal migrants. However, our results suggest that previous findings on the development‐related contributions of returning migrants from the West need to be appropriately contextualized. When returnees from the West invest in self‐employment, they typically shy away from Africa's largest economic sector – agriculture. In contrast, levels of self‐employment, especially in agricultural self‐employment, are highest among returning migrants and immigrants from other African countries, especially from those nearby. We also underscore the gendered dimensions of migrants’ contribution to African development by demonstrating that female migrants are more likely to be self‐employed in agriculture than male migrants. Furthermore, as human‐capital increases, migrants are more likely to concentrate their self‐employment activities in non‐agricultural activities and not in the agricultural sector. The study concludes using these findings to discuss key implications for policy and future research.     

Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone and the Problems of Demobilisation,Rehabilitation and Reintegration into Society: Some Lessons for Social Workers in War‐torn Societies

Between March 1991 and February 2002 Sierra Leone was engulfed in a bloody and protracted civil war in which tens of thousands of people were killed, many more injured, over half of the population displaced and millions of pounds worth of property destroyed. Much of the violence unleashed, particularly on the civilian population, was the work of child soldiers. The phenomenon of child soldiers raises many issues of children's well‐being, although this phenomenon is not unique to Africa.

In this paper, I briefly analyse the reasons for and the nature of the conflict, in particular the social forces which impelled children to join social movements challenging for state hegemony. I focus on how peripheral capitalism has impacted on the Sierra Leonean family and how the ensuing political and economic crises have left Sierra Leonean children with little security, forcing them to turn to family surrogates (social movements) for protection. I examine the processes of demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration of former child combatants and some of the problems and challenges to social work and social workers working with traumatised children from war ravaged communities in African nations. I suggest that Tonnies' dichotomy between ‘Gemeinschaft’ and ‘Gesellschaft’ offers a useful framework for social work education in this context.     

Aid Reduction and Local Civil Society: Causes,Comparisons, and Consequences

Questions about aid reduction and its implications are crucial to understanding the future of civil society in many low- and middle-income countries and in post-conflict states. Local civil society in these contexts is often heavily influenced by foreign donors. This article provides an introduction to this theme issue about aid reduction and local civil society. The objective of the introduction and issue articles is to examine the causes of aid reduction and donor withdrawal, the impacts on local civil society organizations (CSOs), and any resulting change in local civil society. We ask: What are the global trends in aid reduction? What impacts does aid reduction have on local CSOs? How do local CSOs respond and adapt? The contributions in this issue demonstrate that aid reduction is indeed global in scale and that impacts and adaptations are often strikingly similar across countries and regions. These similarities form the basis for building new theory but also prompt new questions about the global effects of aid on civil society.