CIVIL SOCIETY: UNIVERSAL CONCEPT OR DONOR FAD? Jan Aart Scholte. Remarks at ODI. 26 June 2002

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1 Introduction CIVIL SOCIETY: UNIVERSAL CONCEPT OR DONOR FAD? Jan Aart Scholte Remarks at ODI 26 June 2002 Development practitioners love their buzzwords. The slogans make a dictionary unto themselves. Nowadays, civil society is close to page one as measured by frequency of use. It is not the first time that development practitioners have adopted a concept from academe and removed much of its analytical potential. One thinks also of terms like social capital, governance and globalisation. Thus if asked to define civil society, many development policymakers reply with considerable imprecision and unclarity. Policymakers also tend to have little sense of why civil society has gained such prominence in development thought and practice over the past decade. Nor have the consequences of engaging civil society associations in policy processes always been considered very carefully. In these circumstances, civil society can indeed readily become a donor fad with limited substance. In my remarks I want to suggest policy-relevant ways of giving civil society more conceptually secure grounds. First I will lay out a notion of civil society in relation to contemporary politics. Second I will note the principal forces that have generated the recent growth of civil society mobilisation on development questions. Third I will suggest a framework for assessing the legitimacy or otherwise of civil society. Defining Civil Society Meanings of civil society have varied enormously across time, place, theoretical perspective and political persuasion. In sixteenth-century English political thought, the term referred to the state, whereas present-day usage tends to contrast civil society and the state. Hegel s nineteenth-century notion of civil society included the market, whereas current concepts tend to treat civil society as a nonprofit sector. Writing in the 1930s, Gramsci regarded civil society as an arena where class hegemony forges consent, whereas much contemporary discussion identifies civil society as a site of disruption and dissent. So what to make of this confusion? In relation to contemporary politics, I would take civil society to refer to a political space where voluntary associations deliberately seek to shape the rules that govern one or the other aspect of social life. Rules in this context encompass specific policies as well as more general norms and deeper social structures. Thus civil society actions may target formal directives (such as legislation), informal constructs (such as many gender roles), and/or the social order as a whole. To be sure, the lines dividing voluntary activities from official and market practices can blur. For example, some civil society associations may assist in the implementation of official policies, and some campaigners may engage in commercial activities to fund their advocacy efforts. However, pure civil society activities involve no quest for public office (so

2 excluding political parties) and no pursuit of pecuniary gain (so excluding firms and the commercial mass media). From the perspective adopted here, civil society can encompass many sorts of actors: academic institutions, business forums, clan and kinship circles, consumer advocates, development cooperation initiatives, environmental movements, ethnic lobbies, faith-based associations, human rights promoters, labour unions, local community groups, peace movements, philanthropic foundations, professional bodies, relief organisations, think tanks, women s networks, youth associations and more. In particular, this conception of civil society stretches much wider than formally organised, officially registered and professionally administered NGOs. An active political orientation is key to this conception of civil society. Some contemporary analysts speak of civil society as covering any social activity that occurs outside of official bodies, political parties, firms and households. However, the more focused concept adopted here excludes those voluntary associations (for example, many recreational clubs and service NGOs) which do not involve conscious attempts to shape policies, norms and social structures. This conception of civil society encompasses considerable cultural diversity. In earlier formulations, civil society related to western politics in a national context. However, talk of civil society today circulates all over the world and is sometimes applied to political practices that derive largely from non-western traditions. Moreover, in contemporary politics civil society associations often operate in regional and global spaces as well as local and national contexts. Conceptions of civil society need to be recast to reflect these changed circumstances. Indeed, some critics have suggested that the very term civil society is so laden with western cultural baggage that other terminology is needed to reflect and nurture pluralism in the relevant political practices. I opt to engage critically with the existing language that has permeated development politics rather than to create new words. The Rise of Civil Society Civil society operations have greatly expanded in contemporary history. The reasons for this rise of civil society are complex and vary in the details between one case and another. However, at least half a dozen general developments in contemporary history have created a context in which civil society can thrive. First, the recent growth of civil society activity has depended in part on sympathetic dispositions in established official agencies. For example, the spread of liberal, pluralist democracy and the decline of colonial rule and one-party states have created an environment that is conducive to the growth of formally organised civil society. In addition, many suprastate agencies (including most United Nations bodies and multilateral development banks) have instituted procedures for the direct involvement of civil society associations in their work. This is not to say that civil society is purely a creation of official agencies, but a sympathetic or at least indifferent stance on the part of authorities helps. A second major impetus to the recent expansion of civil society has been widespread dissatisfaction with party politics as the principal formal channel of political mobilisation.

3 Across the world, large sections of the public have lost trust in political parties and what are perceived to be largely insincere and corrupt career politicians. Moreover, party politics has largely ignored important aspects of contemporary governance, such as regional, global and private regulatory mechanisms. In addition, party politics has often not proved a very effective way to pursue non-national interests (for example, connected with gender or race). The search for alternative means of political action has taken many citizens to civil society. Third, the contemporary expansion of civil society has responded to altered contours of governance in the wake of globalisation. Civil society has grown in tandem with the emergence of more multilayered, diffuse governance in a globalising world. Traditional statebound regulation has proved inadequate to govern transworld phenomena like air travel, telecommunications, transborder production, electronic finance, global markets and transboundary ecological degradation. To make up these deficits, countless substate, suprastate and private mechanisms have emerged alongside regulation through the state. Many civil society associations have formed as a means to promote the creation of these new sites of governance and/or to influence their policies once they are in place. Globalisation has also promoted the expansion of civil society inasmuch as the spread of transworld relations has encouraged a diversification of collective bonds beyond a narrow fixation on state-nations. Globalisation has attenuated the previous tight interlinkage of territorial geography (country), territorial governance (state) and territorial community (nation), thereby opening room for the expression of alternative collective identities. These other bonds of solidarity derive inter alia from class, ethno-nationality, gender, race, religious faith, and sexual orientation. Contemporary globalisation has also stimulated some growth in cosmopolitan commitments, as witnessed for example in global human rights campaigns, transworld relief operations and transborder environmental advocacy. These various drives to express social solidarity on non-state lines have drawn many people into civil society associations. Fifth, the development of new communications technologies has further facilitated an expansion of civil society activities. Cheap telecommunications and the Internet have enabled people with shared concerns and values to mobilise together over whatever distances and across whatever borders. Likewise, the electronic mass media have allowed civil society associations to attract sympathisers on an unprecedented scale. Finally, at a deeper level, civil society s current prominence reflects the growth in contemporary history of a more reflexive modernity. With reflexivity, people have heightened awareness of the limitations if not fundamental flaws of the cornerstones of modern society. Many people today are gripped with concerns about ecological degradation, runaway markets, persistent social injustices, democratic deficits, deterioration of community, and loss of spirituality. Civil society has offered such people an arena to pursue their determination to repair or perhaps transcend modern social structures. In spite of these powerful spurs to civil society activity, we must of course not exaggerate the scale of its growth. Everywhere in the world, public-sector and market operations have generally continued to dwarf those of civil society. Nevertheless, the recent growth of civil society has been substantial and striking, and the powerful forces behind this rise, as just described, suggest that the trend is with us to stay. Legitimacy

4 But are these proliferating civil society interventions legitimate? On what grounds, if any, do civil society associations have a right to exert authoritative influence in the politics of development? I would suggest four general grounds: morality, efficacy, democracy and social cohesion. Civil society mobilisation secures moral legitimacy when the actors in question pursue noble objectives and fulfil the role of a social conscience. Prominent examples include mobilisations on genocide, disaster relief, ecological integrity, poverty eradication, and human rights guarantees. Claims of moral legitimacy are not unproblematic, of course, since different individuals and cultures hold different conceptions of basic values. And some civil society mobilisation is widely agreed to be morally illegitimate, such as associations that promote caste and class prejudice, homophobia, sexism, or oppression of the disabled. So the moral rectitude of civil society associations cannot be taken for granted. A second general basis for the legitimacy of civil society activity is the more mundane criterion of efficacy. In meeting what might be called performance legitimacy, civil society associations contribute to more workable governance. They demonstrate expertise, knowledge, information, or competence. To be sure, claims of efficacy are not uncontested. Knowledge is power, and claims of competence are secured through political struggle. In particular, currently ruling discourses of technocratic expertise have tended to promote scientific knowledge above other epistemologies. Civil society contributions of emotional, spiritual and other non-rational expertise have been less appreciated. Moreover, civil society associations have sometimes demonstrated considerable incompetence. Such low-quality policy inputs are either an unhelpful distraction or, at worst, a cause of actual harm. As well as morality and efficacy, civil society activism can be legitimate on democratic grounds. Contemporary politics suffers from large democratic deficits. On many occasions civil society associations have given voice to publics that would otherwise be largely or completely excluded. Civil society has also often furthered open debate of plural views and provided spaces to express minority positions and dissent. In addition, civil society initiatives on public education have often enhanced the quality of popular involvement in development politics. Moreover, pressure from civil society for transparency and accountability has induced many official circles to mend undemocratic ways. On the other hand, civil society initiatives can also limit public participation and public accountability. Civil society organisations can be run with top-down managerial authoritarianism. Many activists have inadequately consulted the publics whose interests they claim to promote. Policymaking in many civil society associations has been quite opaque to outsiders. Further question marks over democratic accountability have arisen when civil society organisations have self-selected leaderships. And civil society activities can bypass and subvert other democratically legitimate authorities, for example, in local and national governments. As regards representation, civil society activity on development issues has disproportionately involved residents of the North, the relatively well to do (North and South), and urban dwellers. Moreover, the leadership of civil society associations has been predominantly middle-aged and male. Hence the contours of civil society can mirror the hierarchies of power and privilege in society at large. So while civil society has considerable

5 democratising potential, it is no more intrinsically democratic than the public sector or the market. Finally, civil society can have legitimacy to the extent that its activities further social cohesion. Our time has often seen declines in community, social integration, the sense of belonging, and social guarantees of minimum welfare. In this vein many civil society associations have created mutual support networks and promoted mutual understanding across deep cultural divides. Civil society advocacy for more equitable access to the opportunities of globalisation and a fairer distribution of its benefits has likewise sought to consolidate social bonds. However, not all civil society activity has had positive implications for social cohesion. Heterosexists, racists, religious fundamentalists and ultra-nationalists in civil society have made it their business to exclude the other. Meanwhile business associations, professional bodies and trade unions have sometimes focused on the narrow special interests of their members to the detriment of the larger collective good. So legitimacy is as complex for civil society as for any other political arena. None of the four main criteria suggested here is unproblematic; nor are the several standards always mutually reconcilable. Hence the preceding remarks offer a framework for debating civil society legitimacy rather than a formula for definitive assessments. To conclude, then, is civil society a universal concept or a donor fad? Preferably neither. We do not want universal concepts that are not carefully related to context. Nor do we want the ephemerality and superficiality of a fad. Rather, we need clear understandings that inform constructive practice. I hope my remarks help us a bit in such a direction.