Engaging Critically with the Reality and Concept of Civil Society

* Paper: Interrogating the Civil. Engaging Critically with the Reality and Concept of Civil Society. By Jai Sen.

Source: Forthcoming in :

Jai Sen and Peter Waterman, eds, forthcoming (2010b) - Worlds of Movement, Worlds in Movement. Volume 4 in the Challenging Empires series. New Delhi : OpenWord

Author contact via jai.sen@cacim.net

Excerpts

Introduction

Jai Sen:

"In our times, in both social and political literature and the media, the phenomenon called ‘civil society’ – or, by extension, ‘global civil society’ – is increasingly accepted and celebrated as a powerful contribution to the democratisation of politics and to bringing common sense and civility to difficult situations. This is so especially in the North, and among those in international organisations, but increasingly so also in the north in the South. In this essay, I put forward the argument that civility – which I submit is at the core of civil society – is structurally suffused with what in effect are profoundly anti-democratic undercurrents, and has always been so. I argue further that today, at a time when the world is dramatically changing, with the historically oppressed becoming new actors on the stage, the power of civility is – even as civil society makes its contributions – undermining processes of much deeper and wider democratisations that are opening up. This, I suggest, should be reason enough to give pause for thought to members and leaders of civil organisations to reflect on and rethink their politics (and their lives); and to give those who do not see themselves as necessarily belonging to civil society, a critical lens through which to view it. This is difficult terrain, however, because the term ‘civil’ and the concept of civility (and their equivalents in perhaps all languages and cultures) are so embedded in our everyday lives and our self-images. They are part of our everyday language, norms, and customs; they are deeply buried in stories and storybooks; they are contained in all our textbooks. Almost by definition the term and the concept are today normatively positive, without question. This is perhaps true of all societies that are conscious of themselves as being ‘civilised’, past or present. But it is especially in the past two decades that the term ‘civil society’ has been vigorously introduced into common usage, in governmental policy, in academia, and in the media – three key circuits of the propagation of ideas – as a part of neoliberal globalisation; and in these circles it has been made a given and a good – a virtually unquestionable good. It is difficult terrain also because the word ‘civil’ in the term civil society is very beguiling, especially for those who feel that they are civil and belong to civil society. However, we need to see the word for what it is – a veil – and to take care not to get seduced by it.

I therefore try to critically visit and examine this apparent good, by looking at two issues:

- One, the dynamics of power relations in the building and exercise of civil society in the world as it is unfolding today, especially in relation to emerging movements and alliances among the historically and structurally oppressed and marginalised;

- and two, the structural politics and dynamics of the global civil cooperation that underlies what is called ‘global civil society’, taking the World Social Forum as an example.

In particular, even as I acknowledge the many contributions in history of civil organisations and civil societies, I try to look critically at the question of power relations within such organisations and processes, and at the internal contradictions of civility. The question of the power of conventional market corporations, and of (market) corporatism, has been well explored, as has the question of the corporate State.2 But for some reason, when we talk of ‘power’ we automatically refer to the state or the market. What I attempt to do here is a parallel exercise, to look at power not among and between state and market and of their power over society, but at power within the non-state (and also non-market) world and among and between non-state actors; in short, at power in the world of civil society.

I do this at two levels. I argue first that the concept of civility is central to (though not alone in) the exercise of power in the non-state world. And second, I reflect critically on the democratic options that global civil society is offering us, not normatively but in structural reality, with the aim of getting practitioners and theorists both in the civil world and in what I term the incivil world to engage with this hard question. I do not, however, try to define, or re-define, the terms. On the one hand, this has been done so richly by others, such as social theorist John Keane;4 and on the other, fixing their meanings is not my objective. Rather, it is to critically engage with and interrogate them, to open them up for debate.

Along the way, I argue that part of the problem lies precisely in the relations of the production of knowledge : Since it is (usually prominent, rule-making) members of ‘civil society’ who, as the brahmins of society, produce the knowledge that most of us are brought up on (that defines what society is and how it works, and establishes the values that it stands for), it is a self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing process. But I also argue that this is changing, with new actors emerging on the stage – including, crucially, in terms of production of knowledge."