Civil Society, Pluralism Polyarchy,
Interest and Pressure Groups
The challenge to authoritarian
societies
Pressure Groups
• Idea that democracy not so much a matter
of parliament or MPs, 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
• Moved on to idea that there are lots of
permanent groups that have to defend
their interests
• Finer produced 10 categories: things lie
churches, chambers of commerce, trade
unions
• Distinguished from parties because didn’t
run for office or try to become government
• Distinction more blurred now
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 liberal and that this one of
the things that distinguished them from
liberal and totalitarian regimes
And now, Civil Society
• Eastern Europe, Gramsci and revisionists
• Gramsci critique of Lenin’s universality
• Explanation of difference between West
and East Europe
• Need for different tactics by revolutionary
• Civil society meant couldn’t just seize the
state and the revolution was victorious.
Long March through institutions
Different traditions
• Classical tradition
• Scottish
• Marx
• Clear bias re: Civil Society in the M.East
 why?
• What kind of associational life can qualify
as forming part and parcel of civil society?
• How does civil society contribute to good
rule?
Scholarly Bias
• 1- Transposition of a
Euro-centric term 
division b/w “political”
& “civil” societies 
GK origins
• 2- Orientalism:
lingering image of ME
 less modern,
democratic, “civil”...
• 3- Religious zeal 
associated with
absence of a culture
of “civisme”…
• 4- Unrealistic criteria
 “civisme” must be
reflected in Westerntype institutions +
practices
Bias (cont)
• Civil Society  autonomous from “political
society”  in M-East: C.S: coterminous
with State/political society  dictates
against growth of C.S + democratic
government
•  Corporatism = obstacle to “civism” &
“civility”
• Problematic term  authoritarian +
pluralist meanings:
• A system of interest representation in which the constituent units are
organised into a limited number of singular, compulsory, noncompetitive, 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.
• P. Schmitter in Rike & Strich (eds.), The New Corporatism (Notre
Dame: NDUP, 1974), pp.93-94.
• Locke = C.S.  arena of activity for
protection of individual property rights from
the state (Two Treatises of Government)
 statist conception  without state, C.S.
carries no meaning
• Hegel (Philosophy of Right) = 1- protection
of individual rights + needs of the rich to
secure freedom in eco/soc/cul/arenas; 2activity outside state control or coercion
• Marx = C.S.  causal relationship with
modes of production  bourgeoisie being
its engine
• Generally: 1- relationship with growth of
public sphere; 2- common good (e.g.
equality, tolerance, participation); 3autonomy from the state
• = E. Shils defines CS =
• “beyond the boundaries of the family and clan
and beyond the locality…[lying] short of the
state.” “The Virtue of Civil Society”, Government
& Opposition 26 (1992).
• [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, Democracy and Arab Political
Culture (Washington, CD: The Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, 1992), p.1.
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, “Democratisation and the Problem of Legitimacy
in the Middle East,” Middle East Studies Association Bulletin
22 (Dec. 1988), p. 168.
[In] a secular, liberal state that subscribes to the principles of
religious toleration, historical religions...are part of civil
society.
T. Asad, “Religion and Politics: An Introduction,” in Social
Research 59 (Spring 1992), p.9.