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Political Economy of Civil Society

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Abstract

This chapter explores the role of civil society in relation to the economy and the polity by focusing on three distinct yet related dimensions: (1) the conceptual history of civil society in relation to political economy; (2) the theory underpinning a political economy of civil society; (3) the implications of a political economy of civil society for policy-making. The main argument is that there is a fundamental difference between ancient and medieval conceptions, which emphasise natural sociability, and modern accounts that accentuate a violent ‘state of nature’. As a result, civil society either reflects the fundamental embeddedness of economic and political processes in social relations or is an artificial construct. The chapter develops a typology of four modern models, provides a theory of the political economy of civil society and outlines a series of policy ideas.

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  1. University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Adrian Pabst

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  1. Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom

    Ivano Cardinale

  2. Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Roberto Scazzieri

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Pabst, A. (2018). Political Economy of Civil Society. In: Cardinale, I., Scazzieri, R. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44254-3_10

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