'Civil society' in an uncivil world

 John Samuel

(October 19, 2007) Words are like flowers. Flowers have their own color, texture and smell. Not every kind of flower blooms in every climate or soil. It's the same with words. Their color, texture, smell and meaning arise  organically from a particular socio-historical and cultural milieu.  When demand exceeds the supply of flowers, there arises a market for  manufactured flowers. Plastic flowers need neither soil nor climate;  they transcend space and time. They may sometimes look like the real  thing. But they can never feel like the real thing.  

So it is with words in the postmodern condition. There are all too  many plastic words, good for decoration and intellectual  pleasantries, and little else. One of the key predicaments of the  ongoing social and political transition in the world today is the  subversion of language and ideas to create political smoke screen or  delusion or to give a semblance of social and political legitimacy  for the hegemonic discourse. Often progressive-sounding words and  phrases are used to conceal the reality on the ground or to create a  virtual or projected sense of select images and discourse. The  reshuffling of meanings and the subversion of political semantics has  become the order of the day. This has become a part of process of  creating the new pornography of politics. The very term Civil Society  is major protagonist in the post-modern politics of delusive power- plays and elusive semantics. They together often create political and  policy mirages.  

The term ‘Civil Society’ is contested terrain. Over the last fifteen  years it has been used to denote everything from citizens’ groups and  activist formations to highly institutionalized non-governmental  organizations and foundations. There is another dimension to this  process of subversive politics of words from the point of view of the  history ideas and the political economy of knowledge.  

Civil society as a concept originated in 18th-century Western Europe.  It was a theoretical construct useful in analyzing and understanding  the emerging socio-political economy of the industrialized west in  the 18th and 19th centuries. The concept was resurrected in the  late-'80s amidst the ruins of the authoritarian regimes of Eastern  Europe. It was born-again in the manufacturing shops neo- democratization ventures in the North. During the second coming of  the concept, more stress was laid on producing and marketing the  civil society in different colors and shapes, rather than on  reflecting the very validity of the idea in relation to real-life  situations and experiences. The civil society is being paraded as the  new panacea for issues such as poverty, human rights, gender equity  and `good governance'.  

What is this civil society all about? Whose civil society are we  talking about? There is no one answer or even set of answers. The  color and smell of the term will change according to the convenience  of the various proponents. As a result of such ambivalence, the  second coming of the civil society conceals more than it reveals.  Civil society, we are told, is synchronous with democracy, freedom of  speech, freedom of choice, good governance and opportunity for  economic growth. But what do all these goodies entail? Whose  democracy? Whose freedom of expression and choice are we talking about?  

The new holy trinity of the State, Market and Civil Society can be  capable of concealing the structural inequalities, marginalization  and patriarchy, and reduces complex reality into neat spaces. There  is an underlying tendency to homogenize the world according to an  idealized notion of governance that skips the entire historical  process of marginalization and unequal distribution of power in the  socio-economic and political arena. The problem with such an  ahistorical theorization is that anything and everything outside the  market and the State can be considered civil society. So the Islamic  Taliban, Sangh Parivar in India and all such fundamentalist  formations as well as small self-help groups, neighborhood  associations or professional groups can be considered part of civil  society. A mega-million non-profit organization with huge corporate  structures and tens of thousand of staff or a mega billion Foundation  is as much part of civil society as a small NGO or a small community  organization. This is an interesting logic wherein sharks, sardines  and shrimps all say we are fish, though the sharks would like the  freedom to swallow sardines and other small fish.  

This nebulous concept had its origin in western political theory. The  pre-18th century concept emerged in the tradition of Aristotle,  Cicero and modern natural law. Till the 18th century, civil society  was considered "a type of political association which placed its  members under the influence of laws and ensured peaceful order and  good government". The discourse on civil society took a critical turn  in the 18th century, as a corollary to the discourse on emerging  capitalism as well as liberal democratic movements. The ambivalence  of this concept is partly because it was an analytical tool used by  both the proponents and critics of modern capitalism. On the one hand  it served as a convenient tool to legitimize the market outside the  sphere of an authoritarian and mercantile State and on the other; it  was a tool to rationalize the sphere of individuals and associations  to assert their freedom and rights.  

One can see three broad varieties of definitions and interpretations  of this term. There is a tradition that can be traced back to John  Locke, Thomas Paine and De Tocqueville -- the liberal tradition.  Though there are differing nuances within this tradition, one of the  significant aspects is that civil society is considered a `natural  condition' for freedom, and a legitimate area of association,  individual action and human rights. Thus the notion of civil society  came to be seen in opposition to the State: it allowed space for  democracy and the growth of markets.  

The classical political economy tradition of civil society emanated  from the works of Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith and J S Mill. This stream  of thinking perceived civil society as a sphere for the satisfaction  of individual interests and private wants. This perspective stressed  the primacy of individualism, property and the market. The third  stream of civil society discourse can be traced back to Hegel, Marx,  Gramsci and Habermass. This stream can be seen as a critique of the  liberal and classical political economy tradition. This perspective  interpreted civil society as a historically-produced sphere of life  rather than the natural condition of freedom. This tradition  questioned the notion of an idealized civil society and recognized  the internal contradictions and conflict of interests within civil  society. For Hegel, civil society was sandwiched between a  patriarchal family and the universal State. Though Hegel questioned  the idealized notion of civil society, he tended to idealize a  universal State. By challenging the idealization of both State and  civil society, Marx argued that the contradictions within civil  society are reproduced within the State. For Marx, the State is not  merely an external force that confronts civil society, but the  reflection of it, wherein different interest groups penetrate the  State to rule. Both Hegel and Marx pointed out the role of the elite  in defining the character of civil society. Gramsci emphasized civil  society as the realm of public opinion and culture. It is the public  sphere where hegemony is created through consent and coercion.  

In the second coming of the civil society in the late-'80s and  through the '90s, the predominant trend has been a resurrection of  the tradition of Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith, with a doze of De  Tocqueville's liberalism. The new civil society discourse is often  misused as a poaching ground by the New Right to rationalise and  legitimize the privatization of the public services and to reduce the  State as a support mechanism to the market.  

The other part of the story is that the Civil Society is also being  used to denote new democratization, grassroots politics and new way  for citizens’ participation and engagement in the process of  governance and affairs of the state. While the term Civil Society has  broader social and political connotations, the tendency is often to  equate the Civil Society with NGOs. The very world of NGOs themselves  are very heterogeneous and with multiple institutional, social and  funding power relations at play. The NGO world is increasingly  looking like an Orwellian Animal Farm, wherein everyone is supposed  to be equal but some are more equal than others. This becomes all the  more problematic given that many of the new-generation NGOs are more  like private enterprises in the public domain. The problem occurs  when such groups or entities develop a universalistic claim based on  an imagined or assumed legitimacy.  

The various political and knowledge traditions behind the term Civil  Society co-exit w and often intermingle to create new sense and  meaning to the term civil society. This often makes the concept fluid  and ambivalent.  

The new civil society discourse is also a symptom of the crisis in  social theorization. Instead of looking for fresh theories to address  the profound socio-political and economic transition, the tendency is  to resurrect concepts and theoretical frameworks from the residue of  the Enlightenment in the 18th century...  

We are in the transitory phase of a new epoch. The notions of nation- state, market, civil society, reason and progress that emerged during  the Enlightenment are beginning to get transformed. In the new  paradigm shift, we once again go back to the lived experiences of  communities and individuals to search for new ways of looking at the  transition of the world. We need a new language, a new set of  insights and a fresh sense of humility to look at our past, present  and future. What we need is to rediscover ethical communities within  our societies and the world. We can still question injustice or  rights violations based on the whole range of humanizing ethical  traditions.  

When we have the potential to grow our own beautiful flowers and  organic words, why must we be deluded by plastic flowers and words?  

 John Samuel is a human rights activist and is currently International Director of ActionAid, based in Bangkok.  This article first appeared in Pambazuka News