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Dissident writings as political theory on civil society and democracy
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Copyright Year | 2012 |
| Abstract | Introduction Civil society re-entered the political lexicon in the early 1990s, precisely because of its apparent capacity, in Eastern Europe and South America, to contribute to 'opening up' and democratizing totalitarian and authoritarian states. Yet subsequent attempts in other contexts to apply the same recipe from the outside, namely strengthening civil society through funding, capacity-building and networking in order to foster a transition to democracy, have often proved less successful. This chapter will focus on those countries in Eastern Europe and South America where civil society emerged as a cause célèbre in the successful transition to democracy: Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, Argentina, Brazil and Chile.1 However, it will not attempt comparative case studies or make causal inferences of who did what when and where, and to what extent civil society drove the transition. Much energy has already been devoted to this debate in the years after transition (see for instance Dahrendorf, 1990; Ekiert, 1996; Kubik, 1994; Stepan, 1989). It may not in fact be possible to satisfactorily resolve this question because with hindsight, the transitions are over-determined by numerous factors. This chapter has a different intention. It will offer a theoretical analysis of precisely how civil society was conceptualized by its protagonists in their predemocratic contexts. Their writings from the pre-democratic period have been largely ignored in later narratives which chart a linear progression from brave western-oriented dissidents to mass mobilization to liberal democracy. Studying the original documents may provide new clues as to how these activists, for want of a better word,2 saw the nature of the regime, how they conceptualized civil society and the sources of its power, and what exactly their democratic aspirations were. The purpose here then is to re-examine what civil society might actually be and how it might function under authoritarian regimes, and to formulate hypotheses about its potential relation to democratization or non-democratization in contemporary settings, on the basis of the writings of the Eastern European and South American 'members' of civil society who re-introduced the term intopolitical theory and practice. The underlying assumption is that if commonalities are found in the thinking of activists in these very different regional and ideological contexts, they might also have relevance for yet different contemporary contexts such as the Middle East or China. Thus, the chapter offers building blocks for a political theory of civil society under authoritarian rule, which others may apply and test in contemporary contexts. Naturally, it must be acknowledged that this cannot be a 'pure' exercise in time-travel, as the author's selection from and analysis of the material is partially determined by her own twenty-first century perspective on civil society and democratization. But this conundrum is really no different from that of any researcher attempting to 'translate' and analyse the perspective of others who are not in direct contact with the reading audience. The author is unavoidably present in the text but attempts to let voices from the past speak for themselves as much as possible through liberal use of literal quotes. |
| Related Links | https://api.taylorfrancis.com/content/chapters/edit/download?identifierName=doi&identifierValue=10.4324/9780203094549-9&type=chapterpdf |
| Ending Page | 72 |
| Page Count | 23 |
| Starting Page | 50 |
| DOI | 10.4324/9780203094549-9 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited |
| Publisher Date | 2012-10-02 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Book Name: Civil Society Activism under Authoritarian Rule Cultural Studies Civil Society Theory On Civil Political Theory Authoritarian |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Chapter |
