Civil Society A Concept for Comparative Historical Research

Reichardt, Sven

doi:10.1007/978-3-322-80980-3_4

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…For him, civil society was no more than a legitimate political order. Equally, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith considered civil society as an entity entangled within the market (Smith 1976 ; Reichardt 2004 ).…”

Section: The Conceptual Review and The Nexus Between Civil Society An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rebellious civil society and democratic consolidation in Lesotho

Kali

2022

J. Soc. Econ. Dev.

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Civil society's efforts to push democratic transitions and deepen democracy are influenced by the political context in which they operate. This study examined the role of civil society in consolidating democracy in Lesotho. Specifically, it explored the tactics employed by the unions to defend human rights and deepen democratic practices. The author conducted a face-to-face interview with the key informants and used content analysis to understand the mechanisms used by the unions to bargain and defend the interests of their members. This study established that unions in Lesotho play a significant role in consolidating democracy through diverse activities such as advocacy, aggregation of interests and checks and balances. However, their civility and cooperative habits are undermined by the irresponsive government of Lesotho. Hence, they resort to social protests in most cases for the government to respond. Though protests seem effective when offsetting the injustices and violation of people’s rights, they open up a Pandora’s Box since they lead to loss of life in Lesotho. The security forces in the country often unleash disproportionate force and kill some protesters. Hence, efforts to consolidate democracy are largely undermined by police and army brutality.

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Section: The Conceptual Review and The Nexus Between Civil Society An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rebellious civil society and democratic consolidation in Lesotho

Kali

2022

J. Soc. Econ. Dev.

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“…Put differently, when the government is less transparent, with limited accountability, not encouraging public discussions on policy issues and oppressing dissident voices, civil society will have little room to flourish. An often mentioned argument is that civil society can only exercise its abilities if conditions for operating independently are sufficiently guaranteed (Reichardt 2004). Democracy not only protects and promotes political pluralism, but also provides a space for cultural, ethnic, religious and other minority groups to exercise a reasonable level of self-determination, selfgovernment and participation in decision-making processes.…”

Section: Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although several authors point out that the strength of civil society in individual countries is the outcome of their specific political constituency, socio-economic structure and cultural history, there is little agreement in literature on the key national contextual factors enhancing civil society development (Heinrich 2005;Orvis 2001). While some authors emphasise the importance of a legal space for voluntary organisation (Blair 1997;Reichardt 2004), others refer to critical socio-economic conditions (Almond and Verba 1963;Uslaner and Brown 2005), to political factors (Badescu and Uslaner 2003;Inglehart and Baker 2000;Shen and Williamson 2005) or to the effects of religious tradition (Inglehart and Baker 2000;Ruiter and De Graaf 2006;Vermeer and Scheepers 2012) as vital conditions for membership of civil society organisations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraining Is Enabling? Exploring the Influence of National Context on Civil Society Strength

Kamstra¹,

Pelzer

Elbers

et al. 2016

Voluntas

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This article analyses the influence of national context on civil society strength based on four key dimensions: level of democracy, political stability, rule of law and economic development. Whereas existing studies mainly focus on Western and post-communist countries, we explicitly include developing countries in our analysis. We use associational membership as proxy for civil society strength and include data of 53 countries. Rule of law, economic development and (to a lesser extent) political stability emerge from our multilevel regression models as the main factors affecting civil society membership. Unlike previous studies, we show that these relations are quadratic instead of linear. This means that where existing theories predict a drop in memberships in developing countries, we find a rise. In other words, harsh conditions actually strengthen civil society in terms of membership levels. We argue that this could be the case because reasons for CSO membership are essentially different in the developed and in the developing world. Contrary to theoretical assumptions, democratic rights do not appear critically important for civil society membership.Re ´sume ´Cet article analyse l'influence du contexte national sur le dynamisme de la socie ´te ´civile en tenant compte de quatre aspects cle ´s : le niveau de de ´mocratie, la & Jelmer Kamstra

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“…The flourishing of these organizations particularly in the second half of the 19 th century tells us an interesting story about societal differentiation and modernization (Reichardt 2004). In Germany, these organizations were used by the state administration to tackle the so-called social question providing solutions to the problems of urbanization and industrialization (Sachße 1996).…”

Section: Three Concepts Revisited 21 Civil Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bringing Society Back In: Civil Society, Social Capital and the Third Sector

Zimmer¹

2008

Civil Society and Governance in Europe

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Civil Society A Concept for Comparative Historical Research

Cited by 8 publications

References 10 publications

Rebellious civil society and democratic consolidation in Lesotho

Rebellious civil society and democratic consolidation in Lesotho

Constraining Is Enabling? Exploring the Influence of National Context on Civil Society Strength

Bringing Society Back In: Civil Society, Social Capital and the Third Sector

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