Civil society: a paradigm or a new slogan?

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 1994 by Israel Batista

Civil society is a space characterized by diversities, tensions and contradictions. Theoretically and practically, it is approached differently in various political traditions and contexts -- by people in the street, among dynamic groups and movements and by policy-makers at the World Bank.

Civil society is an appealing concept at this transitional historical moment. Daniel Bell has noted that the "demand for a return to civil society is a demand for a return to a manageable scale of social life, one which emphasizes voluntary associations, churches and communities, arguing that decisions should be made locally and should not be controlled by the state and its bureaucracy".(1)

In exploring the ecumenical relevance of this concept against the backdrop of the institutional crises affecting state and society today, we should take care to affirm the diverse opinions of marginalized and excluded people.

Three case studies

To show why civil society is not a univocal theoretical concept, let us look briefly at three different kinds of developments of civil society: in the United States, in Latin America and in Central and Eastern Europe.

1. The United States has been promoted globally as a model for civil society. Citizenship, participation and freedom have been interpreted in a way that reveals their essential ideology; and the universalization of these values and the beliefs on which they are based is seen as a messianic task. Civil society has been conceived ideologically as "Americanism". This national identity has also been called civil religion -- the marriage of religion and politics.

This civil religion was behind the nineteenth-century notion of Manifest Destiny,(2) which revived the cyclical understanding of history in which different societies play a leading role in each succeeding era. With the decadence of European culture, "Providence" called the United States to take such a messianic role.(3)

The notion of Manifest Destiny sees the nation as God's main agent in history. The sovereignty of individual freedom, political liberty and equality, rooted in natural law and blessed by religious values, becomes a potent ideology; and society assumes missionary functions when it perceives itself as a messianic model worthy of worldwide replication.

This interpretation of US society, mediated through different kinds of associations, volunteer groups, churches and communities, has produced contradictory results. The active "neo-conservative" and "new right" movements of the 1980s developed the idea of "democratic capitalism" at a world level. As part of this attempt, they emphasized civil society as a way to promote what was called mass conservatism. During the Reagan administration, this mass conservatism campaigned in favour of a number of conservative initiatives using groups, individuals, churches and associations independently of the state in order to mobilize public opinion.

The project of "global democracy", an important component of the "new international order" after the fall of the Berlin wall, is now being preached by the US as a renewal of Manifest Destiny. Global democracy is defined as a planetary expansion of economic and political freedom, viewed through the prism of neo-liberal economics. The bases of the pyramid of democracy are privatization and the market.

On the other hand, the civil rights movements of the 1960s exemplified a dynamic process in which civil society mobilized US public opinion for resistance and justice. The anti-Vietnam war movements offered a similarly encouraging example of the potential of groups, organizations, churches and communities in US society. More recently, the Clinton administration has again, if vaguely, raised concern for the problems of the inner cities and the poverty and violence in urban centres, making this moment a test for social movements in the US. The social forces in society are being called to seek manageable scale communities of social life and to promote life-centred values. hi a very special way, churches and the ecumenical movement are being challenged to promote new ethical values in society.

2. In Latin America the idea of civil society has been closely related to the understanding of the state, social and economic development and democracy.

The role of the state has been the main criterion in dealing with society among the Latin American left. According to Rafael Soares de Olivera(4), two historical positions can be identified. For the Latin American left, the state traditionally represented a class whose interests were defended by the use of force if necessary. But in the mid-twentieth century the left began to realize that consensus was possible in civil society. The state was considered as not only coercive but also persuasive. It was seen as a wider space in which both political society (bureaucracies, political parties) and civil society (social movements and organizations) could merge together.

However, this approach was soon confronted by the overwhelming presence of "national security states" throughout Latin America from the 1970s to the end of the 1980s. Today yet another reality is changing the nature and function of the state in Latin America. Social, economic and political decisions for which the state was once responsible are now made by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and US state department. This phenomenon has been called "transnationalized association" (asociacion transnacionalizada).(5)