Civil Society

Traditions

Historians of the idea of civil society suggest that these contemporary reservations have their roots in the complex and multifaceted intellectual genealogy of this term and the different modes of thinking that underpin its usage in modern Western thought. Both of the conceptions outlined at the start of this entry stem from a way of thinking about Western modernity that emerged in European thought in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Specifically, the idea that modern societies can be analyzed in terms of the development of three separate and rival orders—the political, the economic, and the social. Civil society is still invoked by many of its advocates as a synonym for the values of authenticity and belonging, neither of which, it is assumed, can be achieved in politics or economic life.

More generally, the entry of civil society into the language of modern European thought was bound up with the development and spread of liberal doctrines about society and politics. Since the eighteenth century, it appeared in the context of the broadly individualistic, autonomous, and rationalistic understanding of the human personality that liberal thinkers tended to promote. In this family of arguments, civil society is a vital underpinning of, and goal for, the “modular man,” whom Ernest Gellner sees as the signature figure of Western modernity. For many liberals, it followed that social order and political obligation can be understood through the analogy of a social contract between ruler and ruled, the rule of law is a precondition for the liberty of the citizen, and the achievement of a commercial order requires and bolsters an improvement in the overall character of the interrelationships of citizens. This broad understanding of civil society as both a precondition for and marker of the distinctive trajectory of Western liberal democracy remains the predominant interpretation of it. That is not to suggest that this view is shared or admired by all. Critics observe the differentials of power and resource that characterize relationships within civil society, the apparent inability of liberal thinking to address the fundamental character of some of these inequities, and the skill and willingness of some states to orchestrate and occasionally manipulate civil society organizations for their own ends.

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