Advertisement

Civil Society: Coming to Grips with an Elusive Term

  • Dorothea BaurEmail author
Chapter
First Online:
  • 634 Downloads
Part of the Issues in Business Ethics book series (IBET, volume 36)

Abstract

After having justified the selection of theories, the fourth chapter uses them to assess the term civil society. It is argued that the term civil society is equally elusive as the term NGO and that it has acquired different meanings over time. The main challenge consists in ascribing civil society a constitutive role that is a role as an essential intermediating force in a system of checks and balances in modern democracies. Liberalism, it is argued, does not master this challenge but only assigns civil society a role subordinate to the market (economic liberalism) or a background function (political liberalism). Deliberative democracy in contrast sees civil society as a distinctive sphere of action which is equivalent to the state and the market and whose normative core consists in operating according to the ideal of open-ended communication without the pressures of decision-making. With this conception of civil society, deliberative democracy prepares the ground for assigning NGOs an important role as political actors who mediate between the particular and the general, and thus also between economic interests of corporations and the public good.

Keywords

Civil society State Market Open-ended communication Pressure of decision-making 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Baker, G. “Civil Society and Democracy: The Gap Between Theory and Possibility”. Politics 18 (2) (1998): 81–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Benhabib, S. The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
  3. Bohman, J. “Citizenship and Norms of Publicity: Wide Public Reason in Cosmopolitan Societies”. Political Theory 27 (2) (1999): 176–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Chambers, S., and W. Kymlicka. Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
  5. Chandhoke, N. “The Limits of Global Civil Society”. In Global Civil Society 2002, edited by M. Glasius, M. Kaldor, and H. Anheier, 35–53. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
  6. Cohen, J. “State of the Union. NGO-Business Partnership Stakeholders”. In Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking 2: Relationships, Communication, Reporting and Performance, edited by J. Andriof, S. Waddock, B. Husted, and S. Sutherland Raman, 106–27. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing, 2003.Google Scholar
  7. Cohen, J.L. “Civil Society”. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by E. Craig, Vol. 2, 369–72. London: Routledge, 1998.Google Scholar
  8. Cohen, J.L. “Trust, Voluntary Association and Workable Democracy: The Contemporary American Discourse of Civil Society. In Democracy and Trust, edited by M.E. Warren, 208–48. Cambridge (UK) et al.: Cambridge University Press, 1999b.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Cohen, J.L., and A. Arato. Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.Google Scholar
  10. Dryzek, J.S. “Transnational Democracy”. Journal of Political Philosophy 7 (1) (1999): 30–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Dryzek, J.S. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond. Liberals, Critics, Contestations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
  12. Edwards, M. NGO Rights and Responsibilities. A New Deal for Global Governance. London: The Foreign Policy Centre/NCVO, 2000.Google Scholar
  13. Fukuyama, F. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press, 1992.Google Scholar
  14. Gray, R., J. Bebbington, and D. Collison. “NGOs, Civil Society and Accountability: Making the People Accountable to Capital”. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 19 (3) (2006): 319–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Habermas, J. Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge (UK): Polity Press, 1996b.Google Scholar
  16. Habermas, J. Der gespaltene Westen. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, 2004.Google Scholar
  17. Hendriks, C.M. “Integrated Deliberation: Reconciling Civil Society’s Dual Role in Deliberative Democracy”. Political Studies 54 (3) (2006): 486–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Kaldor, M. Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Cambridge (UK): Polity Press, 2003b.Google Scholar
  19. Kant, I., and T. Humphrey. To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003.Google Scholar
  20. Kapstein, E.B. “The Corporate Ethics Crusade”. Foreign Affairs 80 (5) (2001): 105–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Korten, D.C. Getting to the 21st Century. West Hartford: Kumarian Press, 1990.Google Scholar
  22. Lohmann, G. Demokratische Zivilgesellschaft und Bürgertugenden in Ost und West. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2003.Google Scholar
  23. Lomasky, L. “Classical Liberalism and Civil Society”. In Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society, edited by S. Chambers and W. Kymlicka, 50–70. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
  24. Murphy, D.F., and J. Bendell. Partners in Time? Business, NGOs and Sustainable Development. Geneva: UNRISD, 1999.Google Scholar
  25. Noonan, J. “Modernization, Rights and Democratic Society: The Limits of Habermas’s Democratic Theory”. Res Publica 11 (2) (2005): 101–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Öniş, Z., and F. Şenses. “Rethinking the Emerging Post-Washington Consensus”. Development and Change 36 (2) (2005): 263–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Rawls, J. Political Liberalism. New York/Chichester: Columbia University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
  28. Seligman, A.B. The Idea of Civil Society. New York, NY: Free Press, 1992.Google Scholar
  29. Spar, D.L., and L. La Mure. “The Power of Activism: Assessing the Impact of NGOs on Global Business”. California Management Review 45 (3) (2003): 78–101.Google Scholar
  30. Stiglitz, J.E. Globalization and Its Discontents. London: Allen Lane, 2002.Google Scholar
  31. Thompson, D. “Democratic Theory and Global Society”. The Journal of Political Philosophy 7 (2) (1999): 111–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Ulrich, P. Integrative Economic Ethics. Foundations of a Civilized Market Economy. Cambridge (UK) et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  33. Warren, M.E. Democracy and Association. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
  34. Whaites, A. “Let’s Get Civil Society Straight: NGOs, the State and Political Theory (re-worked version of two papers by A. Whaites, which appeared in Development in Practice Volume 6, Number 3, 1996 and Development in Practice Volume 8, Number 3, 1998).” 2000. First Accessed October 10, 2007. http://www.developmentinpractice.org/readers/NGOs/DevNGO%20Whaites.pdf.

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of St. Gallen, Institute for Business EthicsSt. GallenSwitzerland

Personalised recommendations

Cite chapter

Buy options