Civil Society &

Social Movements
Prepared by:
Gleizhel Rafael & Jamaica Pagulayan
Civil Society
Civil Society
 Civil Society
•A civil society is comprised of groups or organizations
working in interest of citizens but operating outside of the
governmental and not for-profit sectors.
•The United Nations refers to civil society as the ‘third sector’
of the society, along with government and business. ‘Actions
and organizations of private citizens around shared goals,
interests, and values’.
•They are known to champion issues of the marginalized
members of society, such as issues on poverty, environmental
protection, human rights, labor rights.
•Voluntary, self-generating, independent, doesn’t seek benefits
but would want to see policy changes and accountability from
the state.
Functions and Contributions of Civil
Organizations

These functions are:

• Protection
• Monitoring
• Advocacy and Public Communication
• Social Cohesion
• Intermediation and facilitation
• Service Delivery
Some Sectors in the Philippines Civil Society

• Business Sectors
• Churches
• Mass Media
• Peoples Organization (PO) and Non Governmental
Organizations (NGO’s)
People’s Organization and Non Government
Organizations
Roles:
• Implementation of development programs for the poor
• Help NGO’s improve their implementation of such projects
through training, research, lobbying, to name a few.
• Organize and mobilize members in government
development discourses.
• Venue for voicing people’s concerns
5 Civil Society in the Philippine Politics
NGO’s - Engaging in suffering relief beliefs, promoting interest of the poor,
protecting the environment, providing basic social activities.
Trade Union - an organized association of workers in a trade, group of trades, or
profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests; a labor union.
Faith-based organizations- played a vital role in providing social services,
healthcare, education and community development.
Indigenous peoples’ movements – uniting indigenous peoples from across the
world to stand together to bring awareness to the issues affecting indigenous
men, women, children and two spirits.
Foundations – to explore, understand, and analyze some of the key principles,
tensions, and values that are fundamental to almost every society, and learn how
to engage in productive problem solving as citizens.
Social Movements
• A large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on
specific political or social issues.
• Social Movements are movements that have a social basis in concern.
• An organized effort to promote different types of change.
• They aims to create change in society, politics, or economics by
campaigning, protesting, or advocating.
Social Movements
•n
 Success
Repression

Failure

Stages of Social Movements

Emergence Coalesce Bureaucrati
Cooptation
zation

decline

Go Mainstream
Stages:
Emergence – start when people realize that there is a specific problem
in their society that they want to address.
Coalesce – social movement defines itself and develops strategy for
attracting new members.
Bureaucratization – movement becomes established
Decline – when people fall away and adopt a new movement, the
movement successfully brings about the change it sought, and when
people no longer take the issue seriously, the movement falls into the
decline stage.
Success – not all social movements end in defeat through repression or
co-optation; some decline because they are successful.
Failure – failure of social movements due to organizational and strategic
failings is common for many organizations.
Co-optation – occurs when movement leaders come associate with
authorities or movement targets more than with the social movement
constituents.
Repression – occurs when authorities, or agents acting on behalf the
authorities, use measure (sometimes violent) to control or destroy a
social movement.
Go Mainstream - when the movement created change.
Four Kinds of Social Movements:

• Alternative Social Movement

• Redemptive Social Movement
• Reformative Social Movement
• Revolutionary Social Movement
Alternative – a social movement that is least threatening and
limited change for limited number of members. Focused on self-
improvement and specific changes to individual beliefs and
behavior. (e.g. Mother Against Drunk Driving MAAD, and Planned
Parenthood).
Redemptive – a social movement that seeks radical change for a
specific, targeted group of people. (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous)
Reformative – a social movement that target’s a broad group of
people but whose changes are limited in scope. (e.g. Buy Nothing
Day)
Revolutionary – a social movement that seeks radical change of an
entire society, the most severe, striving for basic transformation of
society. (e.g. Civil Rights Movement or the Political Movements,
such as push for communism).
The end.