Civil Society Lecture:
Interest Groups, Pressure
Groups, Social Movements,
Pluralism & Polyarchy,
Corporatism, Civil Society
Definitions, Implications, Problems
and Questions
Pressure Groups
• Grew from the idea that democracy not so
much a matter of parliament, MPs or
Congressmen, but about managing
demands of competing groups
• Permanent or ad hoc?
• Insider or outsider?
• Campaigners or defenders?
• Single-issue or multi-issue?
Interest groups
• More permanent connotations: idea that
there are lots of permanent groups that
have to defend their interests
• Finer produced 10 categories: things like
churches, chambers of commerce, trade
unions
• Distinguished from parties because didn’t
run for office or try to become government
• Distinction more blurred now
Social Movements
• SMs are defined as ‘a set of opinions and beliefs in a
population which represents preferences for changing
some elements of the social structure and/or reward
distribution of society’ (McCarthy and Zald, 1977)
• SMs are broadly conceived: They differ from interest
groups and pressure groups which are specific
organisational phenomena
• Interest groups and pressure groups can become part of
a SM (eg trade unions in the broader labour movement),
as can political parties (eg the Labour Party in the Ban
the Bomb movement and CND in the 1980s)
• When referring to organisations within a SM they are
described as social movement organisations (SMOs).
Pluralism or Polyarchy
• Two of those 1960s political science terms
• Simply mean that there are lots of centres
of power in a particular political system
• Supposed to be the case that all
democracies are liberal and this is one of
the things that distinguishes them from
totalitarian regimes
Corporatism
• Problematic term
• Has authoritarian & pluralist connotations:
A system of interest representation in which the constituent units are
organised into a limited number of singular, compulsory, non-competitive,
hierarchically ordered and functionally differentiated categories, recognised
or licensed (if not created) by the state and granted a deliberate
representational monopoly within their respective categories in exchange for
observing certain controls in their selection of leaders and articulation of
demands and supports.
(Schmitter in Rike & Strich (eds.), 1974: 93-94).
• Mexico up to 2000 is a perfect example of
corporatist state
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Classic Definitions
Revised Ideas
Current Uses of the term I
Current Uses II
Current Uses III
Current Uses IV
Problems with the term
Obstacles to Civil Society
Civil Society and Democratisation I: Latin America
Civil Society and Democratisation II: the Middle East
Conclusions…
Classic Definitions: John Locke &
Georg Willhelm Friedrich Hegel
• CS is an arena of activity for the protection
of individual property rights from the state
(Two Treatises of Government)  statist
conception  without state, CS carries no
meaning
• Hegel: 1- CS entails the protection of
individual rights & the needs of the rich in
order to secure freedom in eco/soc/cul
arenas; 2- CS describes eco/soc/cul
activity outside state control or coercion
Classic Definitions: Karl Marx
&Thomas De Tocqueville
• Marx: “Bourgeois Civil Society”: an “economic” definition
of CS
• CS is independent of government, separates the
economic sphere from the personal and the political
spheres, and has the bourgeoisie as its engine
• De Tocqueville: CS Vs State
• The need to defend CS from state’s tendency to smother
individual and social freedoms
• CS as the private sphere, independent of government
intervention
Reinterpretations of Civil Society:
Antonio Gramsci
• Gramsci’s critique of Lenin’s universality
• Differences between West and East
Europe required different tactics from
Western revolutionaries
• Existence of strong (bourgeois) civil
society in West meant revolutionaries
couldn’t just seize the state.
• Need for “intellectuals” to win over
institutions of civil society
Current Uses of the term I: E. Shils
and M. Walzer
• E. Shils: CS is “beyond the boundaries of the
family and clan and beyond the locality…[lying]
short of the state” (1992).
• M. Walzer: CS is “the space of uncoerced
human association & also the set of relational
networks - formed for the sake of family, faith,
interests & ideology – that fill this space” (1995)
• For both, CS incorporates trade unions, SMs,
cooperatives, neighbourhoods, societies etc.,
which promote particular interests
Current Uses of the term II
* Challenging Authoritarian Regimes:
- Counterweight to state power (return to de
Tocqueville)
- Independent sphere of free expression
and association (Hegel)
- Place from which to develop new or
“counterhegemonic” political projects
(Gramsci)
Current Uses of the term III
* Contribution to democracy
- CS as sphere of “civility”: a normative
interpretation (Gramsci: role of
intellectuals)
- CS as sphere of pluralism & participation:
an institutional interpretation (Gramsci:
structures of civil society)
- CS as a check on state power (Locke,
Hegel, de Tocqueville)
Current Uses of the term IV
* Becoming an International Actor
- NGOs and INGOs – “NGO-isation” of
“World Society” (Meyer, 1997)
- World Economic Forum, WTO (?)
- Transnational Advocacy Networks
- International Social Movements: Seattle,
Genoa, World Social Forum, “Antiglobalisation”
Problems With the Term…
• Fuzzy: Where are the boundaries?
• Are multinationals part of an
internationalising civil society? Are they
part of governance structures? Should we
reserve “civil society” for progressive probono actors?
• Idea of CS is rooted in western philosophy
and historical development…Orientalism?
Obstacles to Civil Society…
• State restrictions on freedoms, civil
liberties etc.
• Social and economic inequalities
• Political culture, ideological & religious
beliefs (can civil society co-exist with
ideological totalitarianism? Can it exist
within a religious state governed by a
theocracy?)
• Backlash: Iran 1979 (?)
Transitions to Democracy I:
Latin America
• Mexico:
• Corporatist state: Central Party (PRI)
• CNC (peasant cadre), CTM (workers cadre),
CNOP (middle classes, bourgeoisie, civil
servants)
Independent
Associations,
Movements, Societies,
independent Press etc
EXCLUDED!!!
PRI
CNC
CNOP
CTM
Transitions to Democracy I:
Latin America
• 1968: Massacre of Students as Tlatelolco coincides with
international attention of Olympic Games
• Condemnation from “World Society” (“reverse panopticon”)
• 1970: New President – Luis Echeverria – Initiates sweeping social
reforms enabling free associations, free speech, free press etc.,
granting legitimacy to civil society organisations (CSOs) previously
OUTSIDE the corporatist structure
• Growth of independent social movements and independent CSOs
• Still corruption at electoral level: PRI maintains grip on power
• 1982: Rise of Neoliberalism & closer ties with America and
multinationals = need for further transparency and liberalisation
• 1988: Neoliberal drive intensifies under President Salinas
• 1994: NAFTA
• 1994: Zapatista movement – dramatises PRI totalitarianism for
World Society
• 2000: Eventual defeat of PRI via free elections after over 70 years
in power
Transitions to Democracy II: Middle East
• “Civil society interpreted in specifically Western
(Lockean, Hegelian…) terms is unlikely to emerge in
the Middle East, but this should not exclude the
development of other kinds of inclusive solidarity
communities”
(M. Hudson, 1988: 168)
• “[In] a secular, liberal state that subscribes to the
principles of religious toleration, historical
religions...are part of civil society”
(T. Asad, 1992: 9)
Transitions to Democracy II: Middle East
• “[There is] confusion in the Arab public
mind, at least about the meaning of
democracy. The confusion is, however,
understandable since the idea of
democracy is quite alien to the mind-set of
Islam”
(E. Kedourie, 1992: 1)
Summary…
• What have we looked at…?
- Classic Definitions (Hegel, Locke, Tocqueville, Marx etc.)
- Revised Ideas (Neo-Marxist ideas of CS as revolutionary)
- Current Uses of the term I (Walzer, Shils)
- Current Uses II (Challenge to authoritarian regimes)
- Current Uses III (Contribution to Democracy)
- Current Uses IV (Internationalisation of CS)
- Problems with the term (Orientalist? Ambiguous?)
- Obstacles to Civil Society (Civil Liberties, Cultural Beliefs)
- Civil Society and Democratisation I: Latin America
- Civil Society and Democratisation II: the Middle East