scholarly journals The politics of civil society forms

PCD Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Muhammad Djindan
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Government Organization ◽  
Democratic Practices ◽  
Accountability Mechanism

Regardless of the debate on how and to what extent civil society contributes to enhance democratic practices, it is generally agreed that there is a reasonable link between civil society and democracy under certain conditions. The aim of this paper is to explore the politics of civil society forms and their contribution to maintain democratic practices in Jakarta. Building from the neo-Tocquevillean understanding of civil society, this article particularly analyses urban environmental activists’ strategy to adopt voluntary association and environmental spin off campaign as the forms of civic engagement to improve public policy in the province. Despite the lack of acknowledgement, this paper argues for the necessary inclusion and elaboration of spin off campaign and voluntary association in the Indonesian civil society literature because of their ability to facilitate diagonal accountability mechanism. Further analysis found that, however, the forms adopted by urban environmental activists suffer similar horizontal and vertical accountability problems frequently found in the more established civil society form (e.g. non-government organization). Nonetheless, the discussion in the paper provides an illustration about civil society’s ingenuity in pushing for democratic practices amidst the “democratic recession” in Indonesia.

scholarly journals A Nation of Organizers: The Institutional Origins of Civic Voluntarism in the United States

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theda Skocpol ◽  
Marshall Ganz ◽  
Ziad Munson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Institutional Form ◽  
Current Discussion ◽  
Institutional Origins ◽  
Membership Associations

We challenge the widely held view that classic American voluntary groups were tiny, local, and disconnected from government. Using newly collected data to develop a theoretically framed account, we show that membership associations emerged early in U.S. history and converged toward the institutional form of the representatively governed federation. This form enabled leaders and members to spread interconnected groups across an expanding nation. At the height of local proliferation, most voluntary groups were part of regional or national federations that mirrored the structure of U.S. government. Institutionalist theories suggest reasons for this parallelism, which belies the rigid dichotomy between state and civil society that informs much current discussion of civic engagement in the United States and elsewhere.

Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society: India and Beyond

2001 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashutosh Varshney
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
The People

Scholars have worked either on civil society or on ethnic conflict, but no systematic attempt has yet been made to connect the two. In an attempt to explore the possible links, this article makes two interconnected arguments. First, interethnic and intraethnic networks of civic engagement play very different roles in ethnic conflict. Because they build bridges and manage tensions, interethnic networks are agents of peace. But if communities are organized only along intraethnic lines and the interconnections with other communities are very weak (or do not exist), ethnic violence is then quite likely. Second, civic networks, both intra- and interethnic, can also be broken down into two other types: associational forms of engagement and everyday forms of engagement. This distinction is based on whether civic interaction is formal or not. Both forms of engagement, if robust, promote peace: contrariwise, their absence or weakness opens up space for ethnic violence. Of the two, however, the associational forms turn out to be sturdier than everyday engagement, especially when confronted with attempts by politicians to polarize the people along ethnic lines. Both arguments have significance for theories of ethnic conflict and social capital.

scholarly journals Asia`s Role in Internet Governance

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-142
Author(s):  
Park Y. J.
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Internet Governance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Negotiation ◽  
Global Public Policy

Most stakeholders from Asia have not actively participated in the global Internet governance debate. This debate has been shaped by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN) since 198 and the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) since 2006. Neither ICANN nor IGF are well received as global public policy negotiation platforms by stakeholders in Asia, but more and more stakeholders in Europe and the United States take both platforms seriously. Stakeholders in Internet governance come from the private sector and civil society as well as the public sector.

New Modes of Governance and Democratic Accountability

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne Héritier ◽  
Dirk Lehmkuhl
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Stakeholder Involvement ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Public Policy Making ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Modes Of Governance ◽  
New Modes Of Governance

AbstractThis article raises the question of the link between new modes of governance and democratic accountability. Our definition of new modes of governance as modes refers to public policy-making that includes private actors and/or public policy-making by public actors that takes place outside legislative arenas, and which focuses on delimited sectoral or functional areas. We identify three different ways in which new modes of governance can be subjected to democratic control: parliamentary control, multi-stakeholder involvement and control through the public sphere and civil society at large. Building on a number of the illustrative insights from various empirical projects, we find that, in our cases at least, new modes of governance did not have a negative effect on existing patterns of democratic accountability. At the same time, neither multi-stakeholder policies nor the participation of civil society guarantee democratic accountability in the strict sense. We provide some evidence to the effect that, if institutionally linked to democratically elected governmental bodies – meaning, in this context, the European Parliament – it is more likely that negative externalities deriving from public policy-making in functionally segmented arenas of the European Union's multilevel polity will be dealt with in a more systematic way.

The Interplay between the State, the Market, and Culture in Shaping Civil Society: A Case Study of the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy in South Korea

2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 479-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seungsook Moon
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
The State ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Voluntary Association ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
New Type ◽  
Relative Decline ◽  
And Gender

After the formal end of military rule in the late 1980s, a new type of voluntary association commonly called “citizens' organizations” emerged in Korean civil society. Pursuing progressive social change through legal and policy reforms, citizens' organizations became the voice of revived civil society in urban Korea and enjoyed public trust until the mid-2000s, when their influence began to wane. Using in-depth interviews and fieldwork data on the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), one of the most influential citizens' organizations, this paper examines how the specific social meanings of civil society informed the roles that the state and the market played in the rise and relative decline of the PSPD and how class and gender affected individual access to it. This focus on the interplay among culture, the state, and the market enables us to move beyond cultural relativism and liberal universalism concerning the theoretical and empirical debate on civil society.

Het profiel van de lokale politiek

Res Publica ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Rudolf Maes
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Government Expenditure ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Government Organization ◽  
Cultural Sector ◽  
Total Government Expenditure

In Belgian political rhetoric municipalities are described as the cornerstone of a well-balanced government organization. However, this is not noticeable in the administrative language: municipalities are described as 'subordinate' administrations or 'administrations under tutelage'. Their share in total government expenditure is alarmingly low, 10.8%.The importance of local politics is determined by:- the political will to recognise the municipality as a 'civil society'- the interest in the democratic content of government and the necessity of policy differentiation- the recognition of local government as a laboratory for policy and as a voice of the place community in the national politics.From the perspective of policy-making Belgian municipalities have a mixed profile. First of all, they are 'cultural municipalities': 28.5% of the expenditures are in the educational and cultural sector. Other important expenditures are: roads and utilities (17%) and security (12.8%). Compared to different West-European countries, expenditures for social matters are rather limited (11 %).

Parenthood and civic engagement

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-108
Author(s):  
Esther Muddiman
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Transition To Parenthood ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Good Citizenship ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family Home

In this chapter, Esther Muddiman draws on qualitative data from interviews with 20 parents of teenagers to explore how parenthood disrupts, complements and triggers various types of civic engagement. The chapter describes how becoming a parent can limit an individual’s ability to maintain their commitment to existing voluntary activities/associational memberships, disrupting previous ties to civil society. However, it also finds that parenthood provides new opportunities for engagement, especially via educational institutions and parental networks; and that the transition to parenthood itself can lead individuals to reflect on their own relationship to society and the values that they would like to pass on to their children: the desire to role-model ‘good citizenship’ within the family home can act as a gateway for participation in civically-minded practices.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document