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Civil Society, Pluralism Polyarchy, Interest and Pressure Groups

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?

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Civil Society, Pluralism Polyarchy, Interest and Pressure Groups

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  1. Civil Society, Pluralism Polyarchy, Interest and Pressure Groups The challenge to authoritarian societies

  2. 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?

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. Different traditions • Classical tradition • Scottish • Marx

  7. Civil Society? • 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?

  8. 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 Western-type institutions + practices Scholarly Bias

  9. 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”

  10. Corporatism • Problematic term  authoritarian + pluralist meanings: • 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. • P. Schmitter in Rike & Strich (eds.), The New Corporatism (Notre Dame: NDUP, 1974), pp.93-94.

  11. Eurocentric Conceptions • 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; 2- activity outside state control or coercion

  12. 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); 3- autonomy from the state

  13. = 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).

  14. Consider These Views... • [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.

  15. 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.

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