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agb commentary upon the relationship between the state and civil society (hence) it is in light of this dichotomy (between the state and civil society) that it is necessary to study democracy, authoritarianism and even totalitarianism in Africa". 3 The point is that political regimes do not operate in vacuo, they are largely a function of the balance of forces between the state and civil society at any given point in time. What then is civil society and how does it help in apprehending the democratization process? State-Civil Society RelationsThe question as to whether or not African states are really one given the low capacity of many of them to exercise effective jurisdiction over their national territories has often been posed. 4 All too fr eq uently, the polemics centre on the validation of the sociological criteria of statehood. Robert Jaclcson and Carl Rosberg have pointed out that Max Weber's socio logical definition of the state as the lauer so aclcnowledged, was based on 'means' and not 'ends' of statehood. Such a definition framed on means of force "emphasizes the empirical rather than the juridical, the de facto rather than the de jure attributes of statehood". 5 In order to circumvent the controversies on the true nature of the African state, we follow Jackson and Rosberg in asserting the persistence and, a fortiori, the existence of this state on the basis of the juridical attributes of statehood. 6The concept of the state is complemented by that of civil society which is conceived as the space between the state and the family where private interests thrive. Roberg Fatton Jr defines civil society as the "private sphere of material, cultural, and political activities resisting the incursions of the state" . 7 To R. Fossaert, it is "society in relation with the state ... in so far as it is in confrontation with the state". 8 The foregoing definitions underscore the position of civil society as a counterpoise to the state but, Michael Bratton, who takes an exception to this confrontational posture, has pointed out that in Hegel 's formulation of this concept and in that of Gramsci, civil society was never conceived as being in confron tation with the state. According to Bratton, these theorists conceived it as "either a step on the way to state formation (Hegel) or a handmaiden in the state's project of domination 3

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