Viktor Pasisnychenko Ph.D. contact: +420603310291, viktorpasisn@gmail.

com 

Conceptual rethinking of civil society: going beyond the institutional dimension. 

Civil society concept in social sciences is associated both with excessive popularity and
severe criticism for its ambiguity and even paradoxes. Like a Cheshire cat civil society
appears and disappears unexpectedly often leaving us with a feeling of deep
disappointment.  Yet, behind this phenomenon, there is a hidden need for a relevant
conceptual rethinking of civil society. We formulate it in a form of the question: is it possible
to meet our new challenges, in particular, to talk about democracy in terms of civil society,
without using old fashion theoretical constructions.  

Below I will briefly outline the main results of my previous research on the subject, which
were transformed into a special course on civil society with the support of the Central
European University.

The most obvious paradox of civil society is its uncertainty because the notion is not only
used by various actors in various senses but also is abused by them (E. Wood, 1990). As a
result, the concept of civil society is described as an empty shell that could be filled in by any
sense {K. Kumar, 1993).

The next paradox is caused by a recent crisis of a dominant liberal concept of civil society in
its neoTocquevillean vision modified through a notion of the public sphere by J. Habermas.
Its popular but simplified scheme: civil society = nongovernmental/public sphere =
nongovernmental organizations = democracy came under harsh criticism with impressive
consequences of the concept crisis (J. Hall, K. Briant, K. Hann, J. Erenberg).

There is also a paradox in the cycles of civil society growth and decline. The first cycle starts
in the early 18 century and goes through conceptual innovations of Lock, Scottish
Enlightenment, Tocqueville, Hegel, and Marx. Its decay occurs in the middle of 19 century
when Hegel dissolves civil society into a state while in Marx's theory both civil society and
state disappear in a communist prospect.  The second cycle starts in 1980 th  after civil
society had more than a century of ignorance. A western idea of civil society this time was
revived by Eastern European intellectuals V. Havel, Z. Mlynar, A. Michnik, L. Kolakowski,
etc. While their revolutionary and slogan use of civil society quickly led to a decay of its
popularity, in 1990th the concept was picked up by western social theory. Just in this third
cycle, we find a dominance of a narrow liberal vision of civil society in the works of  E.Arato
and J. Cohen. It was greatly reinforced by R. Putnam's social capital theory, which links
democracy development with an activity of civil associations. But new studies like S.
Bermann proved that civil society is not equal to democracy and its institutions could ruin it
as in nazi Germany.. R. Putnam (2000) also contributed to this decay of civil society by his
discovery of a strange vanishing of civil America. Yet in 2002 he again turns to a discourse
of civil society revival when he claims that after the terrorist attack a unique window had
opened for the American civil renaissance. In short, there are many such cycles of civil
society growth/decay oscillations that could be both global and national by its nature. In the
last decade, the world was witnessing a decline in democracies. Yet now it looks like
Russian aggression in Ukraine has caused not only an explosion of civil society in my
motherland but its revival in many countries that show their strong solidarity with Ukraine.

Finally, the fourth paradox means that despite its ambiguity we cannot just refuse the civil
society concept using. Contrary to describing it as a communism-like myth the majority of
scholars are persistent in its defense (J.Keane, C. Hann). Some of them even changed their
evaluations from negative to positive and had stressed the advantage of civil society in a
comparison with the democracy concept (K. Kumar, 2000).

Therefore we conclude that this conceptual uncertainty is not tolerable anymore and our
rethinking of civil society should start by clarifying some orientations in this chaotic space.

1. In our methodological approach, we share a classification of A. Seligman (1992) who is

distinguishing three meanings of civil society: a) a slogan, b) a normative term as a desired
social order, c) an analytical term in social sciences with its own conceptual history. Our
focus on analytical vision helps us to concentrate on what is instead of what should be and
leave the slogan and populist use of the notion for politicians and journalists.

These conceptual clarifications lead us to important preliminary conclusions.

1. An issue of civil society content should get a concrete form. Instead of a senseless
question What is civil society we have to ask Which civil society do you mean, is it a civil
society of Lock, Ferguson, Hegel, Marx, Gramsci, Havel, Habermas, etc? Besides, don't you
mean civil society mainly as a slogan for mobilization or as an image of the society you want
to live in.
2. Our methodological approach excludes a popular search for a unified definition of civil
society. Contrary to such reductionism we need to acknowledge the plurality of various
visions of civil society. If we perceive it as a complicated orchestra then this complexity and
contradictions do not look any more like paradoxes and what was described as the weak
side of this theory turns out to be its polyphony advantage.
3. There is no paradox in the case of a crisis with the dominant liberal model of civil society
as opposed. to a state and reduced to Tocqueville or Putnam voluntary associations.
4. To discover how rich is the conceptual history of civil society we propose a more detailed
study of the key theoretical traditions and their main figures.

Theme 1. An early tradition of civil society and its identification with a state and civilization.
J. Lock on civil society and a state of nature, A unique contribution of Scottish Enlightenment
in the theory of civil society. (A. Ferguson, A. Smith).
Theme 2. A formation of a state-centric model of civil society by Hegel and its hard
distinction from the state
Theme 3. A. Tocqueville and society-centric model of civil society. The origins of the civil
society liberal concept..
Theme 4. Marxist theory of civil society as market capitalism.
Theme 5  A role of cultural hegemony in the theory of civil society A. Gramsci.
Theme 6  Velvet revolutions and revival of civil society by Eastern European intellectuals.
Theme 7  Conceptual innovations in the civil society theory  by contemporary Western social
scholars 

Some short lessons from this analysis of civil society conceptual history.
It is defending a monopoly of any theoretical model of civil society, for example, its liberal
version that creates mentioned above situation of uncertainty and paradoxes around the
concept. 
Conceptualization of civil society is not reduced to the liberal civil society/state distinction.
Today its value is challenged by many scholars and they turn to the Scottish version of civil
or civilized society vs barbaric society, which represents a broad vision of civil society. Those
scholars, who support such an approach had formed a group of so-called generalists (E.
Gelner, V. Perez Diaz). Another group of maximalists partly share this broad vision but
excludes the state ( J. Keane, E. Shilz). There is also the third group of minimalists who still
defend a narrow understanding of the civil society in terms of the public sphere and civic
associations.(E.Arato, J. Cohen, J Habermas)
Finally, our analysis has indicated that the conceptualization of civil society mainly in terms
of formal institutions is a real obstacle to its rethinking. No doubt institutional approach is an
important instrument of exploration but not a sufficient one. It is still difficult to evaluate civil
society by a number of its institutions and to differentiate institutions that support democracy
development from those that are neutral or even are harmful. Going beyond formal
institutions, from our point of view, means that we have to add another cultural dimension to
civil society as the solidarity of the community that shares common democratic values.and
where its actors are ready to defend it. This part of our research needs further elaboration.
But we are sure that only a combination of institutional and cultural dimensions of civil
society could show real and complex relationships between civil society and democracy.

1. Alexander, J. Real Civil Societies: Dilemmas of institutionalization . -  London: Thousand

Oaks, 1998.
2. Ferguson A. An Essay on the History of Civil Society. Edited by Duncan Fobres,. -
Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press, 1966.

3. Civil society: Challenging western models. Ed. By Chris Hann and Elizabeth Dunn. - L.,
New York. Rotledge. 1996.

4. Victor Perez Diaz The Possibility of Civil Society: Traditions, Character and Challenges.In:
Civil society: theory, history, comparison, ed. By J.A. Hall. Cambridge: Polity, 1995, 80-109.

5. Civil Society and Political Theory. /Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato. Cambridge, Mass:
London: MTT Press, 1992.

6. Seligman А.  The Idea of Civil Society. - New York: The Free Press, 1992.  Ehrenberg J.