Global Civil Society and the Question of Global Citizenship

For many recent commentators, the association of citizenship with the nation-state is under siege, as transnational and even global forms of citizenship begin to emerge. The nascent phenomenon of global citizenship in particular is characterized by three components: the global discourse on human rights; a global account of citizenly responsibilities; and finally “global civil society.” This last component is supposed to give a new global citizenship its “political” character, and for many represents the most likely vehicle for the emergence of a global, democratic citizen politics. This paper critically examines this view, asking whether a global form of citizenship is indeed emerging, and if so whether “global civil society” is well-equipped to stand in as its political dimension. The paper examines two opposed narratives on the potential of global civil society to form a political arm of global citizenship, before returning by way of conclusion to the vexed notion of global citizenship itself.This paper draws from the final chapter of Rethinking Equality: the Challenge of Equal Citizenship, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2006.     

Civil Society Efficacy,Citizenship and Empowerment in Africa

This paper contributes to the debate on the limited efficacy of civil society in Africa. It examines the complex interface between notions of civil society and citizenship within the context of the postcolonial state in Africa. It argues that the bifurcated character of citizenship is implicated in the inefficacy of civil society. This is underlined by the limited achievements in social citizenship, aggravated by the economic crisis and neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and 1990s as well as the politics of regime sustenance. Political disengagement, drain on the moral content of public life and diminished collective orientation of citizens, aggravated conflicts within society, thereby, promoting a democratisation of disempowerment and a disorganised civil society.     

Making Civil Society Sustainable: The Legacy of USAID in Croatia

What makes civil society sustainable? This paper examines USAID “Legacy Mechanisms”—programs designed to support a stable civil society after USAID withdraws aid—in the context of post-war Croatia to reconceptualize civil society sustainability in terms of resilience. Rather than examine whether specific legacy mechanisms remained intact, this paper looks at how Croatian civil society organizations adopted, adapted, and dropped these legacy programs to respond to novel crises and a changing political and social environment once USAID exited Croatia. Drawing on archival data from USAID’s time in Croatia and interviews conducted between 2008 (the year after USAID withdrew) and 2016, this paper shows that the long-term impact USAID had on civil society lay not within the formal institutions and organizations it supported, but in the resilience, creativity, and cooperation it fostered in the civil society sector.     

Securing the Market,Pacifying Civil Society,Empowering Women: The Middle East Partnership Initiative1

The “Middle East Partnership Initiative” (MEPI) is now the main framework for U.S. soft interventions in the Middle East. Established by the Republican administration in 2003, this program follows a rationale of political and economic reforms as a means to uproot terrorism and spread democracy. This article offers a content analysis of this program by questioning the assumptions behind the MEPI’s focus on “civil society” and “women’s empowerment” and by showing their significance to neoliberal regimes of pacification and securitization.     

The Interdependence of Social Justice and Civil Society

Has civil society declined in the United States in the past 20 years? Multiple indicators suggest evidence for decline. This paper questions Robert Putnam's generational explanation for decline and suggests an alternative explanation, namely the structural economic transformation of the U.S. and how it has been managed. Individuals' perceptions of economic distress have increased since 1972 and are related to changes in indicators of civil society, including associational memberships, trust, anomia, and espoused racial and gay tolerance. Economic distress is also related to political interest and participation. Other consequences of an eroding civil society are discussed, including rising crime and inhibited economic productivity

     

The Uneasy Birth of Czech Civil Society

This paper analyzes both the political discourse and the reality of Czech civil society. It describes how the concept of civil society has emerged in a difficult ideological context, and sets out how policy towards it has developed, also highlighting its economic role. Recent empirical evidence on the existing range of citizens' activities and their attitudes toward aspects of civic society and organizations within it is marshaled in order to estimate the potential for citizenship in the Czech Republic.     

Civil Society and Democracy: The Israeli Experience

Civil society has been considered pivotal to democracy, but the causes of its performance have remained controversial. According to one view the political context is a critical factor in shaping the contours of civil society. Another suggests that whether democracy prevails is contingent on society itself and the associations comprising it. In a test of these views it was assumed that if society prevails associations would vary by type. If the state is more important, then associations would be expected to score similarly on the democratic scale. It was also expected that variation among the types of performance would cut across group categories, reflecting general attributes of the polity. Data were derived from a survey conducted among voluntary associations in Israel (n = 360). Findings showed that (a) associations scored similarly on the democratic scale, (b) the scores for the democratic performance were not influenced by group category, and (c) the least performed function was integration.     

The State and Civil Society in Disaster Response

Abstract

This paper, based on the report “The State and Civil Society in Disaster Response: An Analysis of the Tamil Nadu Tsunami Experience,” (Srinivasan, Nagaraj, & Venkatesh, 2005) is essentially an empirical analysis of state and civil society responses in Tamil Nadu (India) to the tsunami of December 26, 2004. It examines interventions by state and non-state agencies, as well as people's experiences in the relief and rehabilitation phases to identify factors influencing both positive and negative outcomes of the tsunami response. Issues related to vulnerability and exclusion, equity, transparency and accountability in different sectors of disaster intervention are explored to highlight themes revolving around reach and efficacy of relief and recovery processes. These analyses bring out some interesting lessons with regard to the importance of institutional autonomy, non-politicized decision-making, and synergetic state-civil society interfaces in fostering inclusive, transparent and accountable rehabilitation processes. The roles played by institutional responsiveness and flexibility in shaping an effective disaster response also emerge very clearly from this study of the Tamil Nadu experience. Another crucial finding points to the need for detailed, reliable and disaggregated geo-demographic and socioeconomic records as a resource base for informing relief and rehabilitation interventions. The study draws extensively from the experiences and insights of people affected by, and involved in tsunami response, and from secondary knowledge resources available on the disaster.     

Communities under fire: Empowering families and children in the aftermath of homicide

This article presents an empowerment approach to clinical services for families and children surviving homicides. Narrative theory is used to integrate child, family and community interventions. The article presents a framework for the examination of narratives and guidelines for co-constructing narratives that empower children, families and communities.     

The Role of Organized Labor in Civil Society

Organized labor has served as a valuable element of civil society. The focus of this inquiry is how the decline of organized labor contributes to the weakening of the civil sphere. I first assess how unions have historically contributed to the positive functions of civil society. I then review the various factors that have led to the deterioration of organized labor and comment on the current state of the labor movement. I conclude with a discussion of the implications in terms of civil society and market culture.     

Global Civil Society: The Dialectics of Concept and Reality

This paper maps out the potential of a Gramscian conceptualisation of global civil society for understanding global resistance to neoliberal globalisation and contemporary global governance. First, the principal features of contention between contemporary representations of global civil society in studies of global resistance are examined. A predominant focus on perpetuating the division between normative and empirical conceptualisations is reoriented towards a Gramscian conceptualisation which, it is argued, affirms the emancipative potential of global civil society in global resistance. Initiating a dialogue between concept and reality (Cox, 1999 Cox, R. W. 1999. Civil society at the turn of the millennium: Prospects for an alternative world order. Review of International Studies, 25(1): 3–28. (doi:10.1017/S0260210599000042)[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar])—also referred to as the ‘dialectical nexus’ (Gramsci, 1971 Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci translated by Q. Hoare & G. Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers; London: Lawrence and Wishart) [Google Scholar])—offers alternative possibilities for the substantive analysis of global civil society in relation to global resistance. This moves Gramscian civil society towards a conceptual grounding which deals with the formation, negotiation and re-negotiation of transversal hegemony and recovers, and emphasises, the role of human agency within the global political economy.

Este artículo expone el potencial de una conceptualización gramsciana de la sociedad civil global, para entender la resistencia global a la globalización neoliberal y la gobernanza global contemporánea. Primero, se han examinado las principales características de controversia entre las representaciones contemporáneas de la sociedad civil global, en los estudios de la resistencia global. Un enfoque predominante en perpetuar la división entre las conceptualizaciones normativas y empíricas, está reorientado hacia una conceptualización gramsciana, de la cual se sostiene, que afirma el potencial tendiente a ser libre de la sociedad civil global, en la resistencia global. Con el inicio de un diálogo entre concepto y realidad (Cox 1999)—también referido como el ‘nexo dialéctico’ (Gramsci, 1971)—ofrece posibilidades alternativas para el análisis sustantivo de la sociedad civil global en relación a la resistencia global. Esto hace avanzar a la sociedad civil gramsciana hacia un fundamento conceptual que se ocupa de la formación, negociación y la renegociación de la hegemonía transversal y recupera y enfatiza el rol de la agencia humana dentro de la economía política global.

为了理解对新自由主义全球化和当代全球治理的全球抵制,本文勾勒全球公民社会的葛兰西主义概念化的潜在意义。第一,在关于全球抵制的研究中,本文探讨了公民社会的当代代表性之间争论的主要特征。主流的聚焦规范和实证的概念化之间分野的固化被重新定位,以趋于葛兰西主义的概念化,此种概念化被认为是肯定了在全球抵制中全球公民社会解放的潜在意义。倡议概念与现实之间的对话（考克斯,1999）——也指向诸如“辩证的相互联系”（Gramsci, 1971）——为与全球抵制有关的、对全球公民社会的实质分析提供了替代的可能性。这使得葛兰西主义的公民社会趋于一种概念性的基础,而这种基础论及横切的霸权的构成、谈判和再谈判,以及复原、强化全球政治经济中的人类行动的作用。

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Эта статья картографирует потенциал концептуализации Грамши мирового гражданского общества для того, чтобы понять глобальное сопротивление неолиберальной глобализации и современное глобальное управление. В первую очередь, рассматриваются главные особенности раздора между современными представлениями глобального гражданского общества в исследованиях глобального сопротивления. Особое внимание, уделяемое сохранению разделения между нормативной и эмпирической концептуализациями будет переориентировано на концептуализацию Грамши, которая, как утверждается, подтверждает освободительный потенциал глобального гражданского общества в глобальном сопротивлении. Инициирование диалога между концепцией и реальностью (Cox, 1999) также называют «диалектической связью» (Грамши, 1971) - предлагаются альтернативные возможности для независимого анализа глобального гражданского общества в связи с глобальными сопротивлением. Это перемещает гражданское общество Грамши к концептуальным основам, которые касаются формирования, переговоров и повторных обсуждений трансверсальной гегемонии и восстановления, и подчеркивает роль человеческой деятельности в рамках глобальной политической экономики.     

Gender and Civil Society: Time for Cross-Border Dialogue

This article sets out to provide a framework for thinking aboutthe gendered nature of civil society. The first section looksat how civil society researchers, both past and present, havefailed to provide any analysis of the gendered relations ofcivil society. This is not least because the family is positedas a residual boundary-marker for the purposes of clearing theanalytic path for the investigation of state-civil society relations.Similarly, feminist researchers have not reworked civil societytheories to explain the engendering of civil society, a keyreason for this being that civil society is not an organizingcategory for analyzing gender relations. In the final sectionwe propose a framework of analysis that uses a circuit of genderrelations to trace the flow of gendered norms, values, and practicesacross the sites of the state, market, civil society, and thefamily.     

The Changing Space for NGOs: Civil Society in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes

In this introductory essay to the special issue on civil society in authoritarian and hybrid regimes, we review core themes in the growing literature on shrinking or closing space for civil society. We discuss the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) as agents of democratization and note the emergence of dual, at times apparently conflicting policy postures within authoritarian regimes (restriction and repression for some CSOs vs. financial support and opportunities for collaboration for others). We posit that different conceptual perspectives applied to civil society can help account for the duality of authoritarian postures and examine repercussions for three key subgroups of CSOs: claims-making (or advocacy) NGOs, nonprofit service providers and regime-loyal NGOs supporting often populist and nationalist discourses.

     

The Ideological Convergence of Civil Society Organizations and Newspapers in Turkey

This study investigates the extent to which newspapers are polarized in representing civil society organizations in Turkey. In examining the news in 15 printed newspapers and 2 online newspapers in 2017, we found that (1) 1499 associations and 499 foundations were mentioned but not equally distributed across the newspapers, (2) Turkish newspapers’ coverage of associations/foundations was affected by the type of association/foundation (religious/conservative vs. secular) and newspaper (pro-government vs. anti-government), (3) when news about an association/foundation appeared in pro-government newspapers, it did not appear in anti-government newspapers, and vice versa, and (4) secular associations/foundations were covered more often by anti-government newspapers than by pro-government newspapers. We therefore argue that in countries such as Turkey, where civil society organizations have historically been closely allied with state or political ideologies, newspapers’ political stances affect the media coverage of civil society organizations.

     

Ebenezer Obadare: The Handbook of Civil Society in Africa

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Global Catholicism and the Politics of Civil Society

A transformation of the politics of Catholicism worldwide has taken place. The final recognition of the modern principle of religious freedom at Vatican II, together with the assumption by the church of the modern doctrine of human rights, has altered the traditional dynamic of church state relations and the role of the church both nationally and transnationally.
National churches no longer aspire to become state compulsory institutions. It is this voluntary "disestablishment" that has permitted the church to play a key role in recent transitions to democracy throughout the Catholic world. Simultaneously, the papacy has assumed the vacant role of spokesperson for humanity, for the sacred dignity of the human person, for world peace, and for a more fair division of labor and power in the world system.
As the Catholic Church abandons the private sphere assigned to religion and enters the undifferentiated public sphere of civil society to take part in ongoing processes of normative contestation, a tension between catholic universality and Roman Catholic particularity becomes evident.     

Civil Society and the Sexual Politics of Difference

This paper discusses the sexual politics of anti-normalization within the context of the sociological discussions of civil society and the public sphere. The sexual politics of anti-normalization is less centered around identity as a means of securing group solidarity and representing sexual communities in civil society. A politics of anti-normalization comprehends identity as a means of normalizing and regulating sexual desire and difference. Anti-normalization entails the politicization of ethical-moral issues concerning sex and desire and the production of sexual differences beyond the usual opposition of heterosexuality to homosexuality. I discuss the ways that the theoretical discourses on civil society reduce conceptions of difference to identity and develop a framework for analyzing the sexual politics of difference beyond identity in the public sphere.