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Democracy occurs when subordinated social groups achieve sufficient access to the state so as to change the patterns of representation con- tained within it (Rueschmeyer, Stephens and Stephens 1992). A demo- cratic state claims to represent the whole of the community and to act on its behalf. The state can no longer, straightforwardly, serve simply as an instrument to protect the dominant class. Democracy requires that subordinated groups have sufficient resources to play an important role within civil society and therefore also in relation to the state. Any expla- nation of democratization, consequently, must pay attention to the concept of civil society and to the struggles to extend rights and citizenship throughout society.

This chapter looks at the role of civil society and of social struggles in contemporary wave democratizations. The chapter first discusses what is meant by the term ‘civil society’ and why it is so central for democracy. It then establishes a framework through which to interpret and classify forms of social activism and identify their role in democ- ratization. It goes on to examine the ways different societal groups and organizations have mobilized to promote democracy and evaluates their success. The chapter also considers whether civil society groups frame their struggles in exclusively national terms or whether they are able to access global resources and what the impact of this might be. Finally, it evaluates the degree to which civil society struggles are eclipsed after the transition. This, it is argued, constitutes a considerable impediment to democratic consolidation.

Civil Society and Democracy

Minimalist or Schumpeterian theories of democracy allocate little importance to civil society. However, with the revival of social protest and political turbulence in the 1960s, there was a renewed interest in the

democratic potential of social organizations independent of the state. The anti-system movements or anti-capitalist protest groups which emerged across Europe and within the US in the late 1960s were seen as a sign of the continuing salience of conflict and protest in politics. More recently, the study of social activism – student-led demonstrations, ‘political’ strikes by workers, gender struggles, community-based activ- ities, etc. – have been placed within the perspective of ‘civil society’. ‘Civil society’ has become a term which is now increasingly used to encompass social activity and societal organizations which, directly, or indirectly, support, promote or struggle for democracy and democrati- zation. Invoking ‘civil society’ as the bedrock of democracy has become popular within both policy-making and intellectual circles. At the same time, the notion of ‘global civil society’ has emerged to describe transna- tional social relationships and the thickening of ties between non-state actors across national frontiers and the search for global justice (Shaw 1994; Colas 1997).

What is meant by ‘civil society’, however, is not always clear. Civil society is said to refer to the space between the state and the individual (Walzer 1992). It is the arena of associations, of individual and com- munity agency. It is, as John Hall (1995: 2) points out, ‘at one and the same time a social value and a set of social institutions’. There is agree- ment, in a broad sense, that it comprises socio-political institutions, vol- untary associations and a public sphere within which people can debate, act and engage with each other in order to deal with the state (Perez Diaz 1993: 55). Civil society is crucial for democracy because it is the space between the public and private spheres where civic action takes place. Organizations and individuals from within civil society can hold the state accountable, share their experiences, promote their interests and learn values of civility and trust. Putnam’s (1993) work on ‘social capital’ as the thread binding societies together has done much to pop- ularize the idea that the denser the web of social interactions between people, the stronger the democracy.

Part of the confusion about the concept stems from the fact that it is understood in quite different ways. Diamond (1994: 5–6) offers a pre- dominantly liberal perspective, in which civil society is understood to be the realm of organized social life that is voluntary, self-generating, (largely) self-supporting, autonomous from the state and bound by a legal order or set of shared rules. It is distinct from the society in general in that it involves citizens acting in a public sphere to express their interests, passions and ideas, exchange information, achieve

mutual goals, make demands on the state and hold state officials accountable. Civil society is an intermediary entity, standing between the private sphere and the state … Actors in civil society need the pro- tection of an institutionalized legal order to guarantee their autonomy and freedom of action. Thus civil society not only restricts state power but legitimates state authority when that authority is based on the rule of law.

The democratic functions of civil society, according to this liberal per- spective, are described in Box 5.1.

However, the liberal understanding of civil society does not pay sufficient attention to the question of power. Thus a more radical posi- tion criticizes the liberal assumption that civil society is automatically inclusive and identifies how unequal economic, social and cultural resources shape the contours of civil society itself. Participation in civil society requires resources, knowledge, self-worth and recognition; under capitalism, therefore, not everyone can participate equally. Consequently, for Jelin (1996: 104), civil society should be used ana-

Box 5.1 The Democratic Functions of Civil Society from a Liberal Perspective

The role of civil society in democracy is to:

● limit state power and subject governments to public scrutiny

● provide an arena for citizens to participate in voluntary associations, increasing their democratic awareness and skills

● offer a space for the development of democratic values such as tolerance, moderation and a willingness to compromise

● create channels other than political parties for the articulation, aggregation and representations of interests

● generate opportunities for participation in local levels of governance

● cut across sectional interests and mitigate political conflict

● recruit new political leaders

● provide non-partisan election monitoring which deters and checks fraud and monitors judicial and legal reforms in new democracies

● disseminate information and, if necessary, contradict official information

● provide the resources to carry out economic reform

● lower the burden and demands placed upon the state. (Diamond 1994)

lytically to refer to a ‘conflictive practice related to power – that is, to a struggle about who is entitled to say what in the process of defining common problems and deciding how they will be faced’. This means it is important to identify who is active in civil society, or how citizenship is constructed, in order to analyze its democratic potential.

The liberal perspective sees civil society essentially as an aid to the state, especially in terms of reducing the load the state carries, and as a check on state excesses. It envisages the democratic state as a minimal state. The radical perspective, in contrast, takes the view that the role of civil society is to transform the state. Community activism is a way to challenge unequal power relations and engage with the state, so as to require it to use its capacities for the benefit of all citizens. Civil society thus becomes an instrument to correct the imbalances of the capitalist state, and struggle between civil society and the state is a means to achieve democracy. The radical perspective assumes that collective action, social organization and protest are healthy signs of democratic life (Ekiert and Kubick 1998: 578). Social struggles facilitate demo- cratic consolidation because they can lead to the reform of the state, the extension of citizenship and the entrenchment of rights. Box 5.2 summarizes the democratic functions of civil society from the radical perspective.

This chapter adopts an approach that combines elements of both the liberal and the radical perspectives. The most important democratic function that civil society can perform is its engagement with the state

Box 5.2 The Democratic Functions of Civil Society from a Radical Perspective

Cohen and Arato (1992) suggest that civil society has two main democratic functions. First, associations and movements from within civil society cooperate, develop identities, offer the opportunity for participation and create networks of solidarity. Secondly, civil society organizations and associations try to influence or reform the state. At times they also take on issues of corporate power and have pressed states to redress the power imbalance generated by capitalism. They also, increasingly, organize glob- ally to promote social justice transnationally. Civil society thus has a dual function, offering a vision of a more participatory system and engaging in the public sphere to promote change. For Iris Marion Young (1999: 152), ‘the critical and oppositional functions of the public spheres of civil society perform irreplaceable functions for democracy’.

as a force for change. The capacity of civil society organizations to press for reform and to engage with the state is perhaps a key for under- standing whether democratic consolidation takes place. But Diamond’s view that civil society organizations play central role in holding the government accountable, in providing an arena for political discussion and in disseminating information, is also important.

It should be noted that civil societies, are, in practice, all very differ- ent in their composition. As a result, there is some confusion, in an empirical sense, about who exactly is in civil society and who is not. Whereas in Latin America, civil society is used overwhelmingly to des- ignate popular social movements and the organizations of the excluded and the poor (Pearce 1997), in East and Central Europe the civil society project is strongly identified with the intellectual movement. Lomax (1997) attributes the weakness of post-1989 democracy in Hungary to the fact that intellectuals were actually demanding power for them- selves; civil society was used to designate the ‘progressive’ middle class concerned with maintaining its own superiority, not popular organiza- tions such as labour or community groups. In Africa, civil society has been used to describe local groups pressing for change and NGOs, even though many NGOs rely on foreign aid for survival. In Asia, civil society refers to labour and social movements, environmental groups and human rights organizations. Furthermore, the boundary between civil society organizations and those of political society is not always clear. In par- ticular, whether political parties more properly belong in the realm of civil or political society is a vexed question. In Africa, Latin America and Asia, parties are generally seen as part of political society because the aim of most of them is to enter and control the state. In Europe, including post-Communist Europe, the picture is perhaps more ambigu- ous, as parties grew out of the civil society project itself. But as the civil society project disintegrated, ties between parties and society dimin- ished and parties became elite organizations. As a result, ‘civil society’ in this book conceptually refers primarily to pro-democracy subordi- nated groups and social movements, rather than political parties.

Conceptualizing the Role of Civil Society in Democratization

Tilly (1984; 1995) argues that national social movements and demo- cratic struggles emerged alongside the consolidated nation state. Tarrow (1998) has drawn on Tilly’s work to develop the ‘political opportunity

structure’, which explains social movements activity through their engagement with the state. He argues that

people engage in contentious politics when patterns of political opportunities and constraints change and then, by strategically employing a repertoire of collective action, create new opportunities, which are used by others in widening cycles of contention. When their struggles revolve around broad cleavages in society, when they bring people together around inherited cultural symbols, and when they can build on or construct dense social networks and connective structures, then these episodes of contention result in sustained inter- actions with opponents – specifically in social movements. (Tarrow 1998: 19)

He stresses the importance of the following in order to understand the impact of social movements:

● political opportunities or constraints

State structures and political cleavages create relatively stable oppor- tunities for engagement; changes in the opportunity structure may mean that resource-poor actors can engage in contentious politics and possibly create sustained social pressure.

● the repertoire of contention

The forms of collective action which people adopt varies. The ‘con- ventions of contention’ may form part of a society’s culture. Leaders may decide on new forms of action. History and collective memory or forms of protest which are copied from abroad may form part of the ‘repertoire of contention’.

● consensus mobilization and identities

A particular way of understanding the world frames collective action or social movement activity which dignifies and justifies it. These iden- tities can excite passion, emotion and commitment; they are the reason why people mobilize, even when they may themselves be in danger. ● mobilizing structures

Social networks determine who participates in social networks. The more embedded in social networks – through work, family structures, institutions, neighbourhoods – the more receptive people are to col- lective action. Tarrow calls these ‘connective structures’.

● the dynamic of movement

To sustain protest, sustained political opportunities are needed. Ultimately ‘movements fail or succeed as a result of forces outside their control’.

● cycles of contention

As opportunities widen, more social movements may become involved in the struggles and may shape how they are framed. Networks become more dense and interactive. The cycle of contention widens. This may lead to ‘outcomes in the sphere of institutional pol- itics; at its most extreme, it may lead to revolutionary change’ (Tarrow 1998: 19–25).

The political opportunity structure is a useful way to conceptualize why and how civil society organizations become important in democ- ratization. The breakdown of authoritarian regimes, the loss of legit- imacy of dictatorships, the collapse of the state, all create opportunities for social mobilization. The state is too weak to contain social protest or to coerce people into submission. Once protests begin, the balance of power between civil society organizations and the state changes. Reform of the state becomes a possibility. However, the cycle of contention may be broken if the authoritarian state can reorganize and generate new tools for repression or find new sources of legitimation. Sometimes, however, the cycle of protest develops so strongly that either it brings the authoritarian regime down or causes it to enter into crisis. There is then an opportunity for a change to the state and to the balance of power between civil society and the state or democratization. Box 5.3 examines how such an opportunity opened in the Soviet Union as a result of the changes taking place within the state.

Opportunities for protest are no longer confined to moments of state transformation or crisis. They can emerge as a result of significant change within the global order and social movements can now appeal to powerful actors located outside the state. This means that the outcome of contemporary social protests is no longer determined solely by the structure of national political opportunities and constraints. Internationalization affects protest from below in different ways and to different degrees. The repertoire of contention adopted by social move- ments can, for example, incorporate forms of protest which have been learned from the television or the newspaper, and the cycle of contention can widen to include the activity of social groups based abroad. Pressure can be brought on the state from inside and outside the country. Box 5.4 provides an example of how a Brazilian social movement came to frame its struggles in such as way as to attract international support which then sustained and enlarged the range of actors pressurizing the Brazilian state for change.

Box 5.3 Political Opportunities and Democratization: The Collapse of the Soviet Union

In the late 1980s, contentious politics – protests, social mobilization, etc. – erupted after years of repression in the former Soviet Union. The reforms that were undertaken by Mikhael Gorbachev transformed state structures and therefore presented a political opportunity for change. Openings in the state were created, and new groups, such as ‘Citizens Dignity’ or ‘Memorial’, pro-human rights groups trying to investigate human rights abuses under Stalinism, were able to use the new channels into the state. Over time, they began to count on the sympathy of some party officials, increasing their access into the state. Meanwhile labour organizations mobilized, strikes occurred and independent unions formed. The elections of 1990, rather than providing support for the government, led to waves of demonstrations against it. According to Tarrow (1998: 76), the most important factors explaining the emergence of contentious politics of 1989–92 in the ex-Soviet Union were:

● the opening of access to participation for new actors;

● the evidence of political realignment within the polity;

● the appearance of influential allies;

● emerging splits within the elite; and

● a decline in the state’s capacity or will to repress.

Despite the protest movements, social movements have failed to have a sustained impact on politics. Social networks are weak and collective iden- tities are principally national, not sectoral or class-based. As a result, the dynamic of protest ran out of steam once the Soviet Union had been broken up into independent nation states. This brought to a close the option of democratization from below.

Civil Society Organizations and Contemporary Democratization

Whereas it was possible only to identify subordinated classes as agents of democratization in the nineteenth century, a range of very different civil society actors have emerged in struggles for democracy since the 1970s. We consider in this section the very different roles played by a number of these groups. In particular, women’s movements, labour movements, community organizations and indigenous associations can be identified as engaging with the state in pro-democracy struggles. Only some, however, were able to influence the transition to democracy and fewer have been able to play a major role in shaping the politics of new democracies. This was due to changes in the political opportunity

Box 5.4 The Formation of a Transnational Protest Network: The Rubber-Tappers in Brazil

International environmental activists began a campaign to sensitize the World Bank to the environmental impact of its loans and development policies in the early 1980s. Attention soon focused on the World Bank loan to Brazil’s Polonoreste Programme in the North East of Brazil and the Amazonian area. While environmental activists were concerned about the damage to the ecostructure and deforestation, the anthropologists who joined the campaign were more worried about how the development pro- gramme affected the indigenous people of the region who were being forced off their land by ranching and other development initiatives. An opportunity to exert leverage over the Brazilian state opened, as Brazil began a tentative political transition and, at the same, was forced into nego-