The paradox of civil society

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 1996, Pages

  Foley, Michael W ^a   Edwards, Bob ^b  

^a CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA   (United States)

^b EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 1842484071     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.1996.0048     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. Michael Walzer, "The Civil Society Argument," in Chantal Mouffe, ed., Dimensions of Radical Democracy; Pluralism, Citizenship, Community (London: Verso, 1992), 89-107.
2. Most important are "religious special-purpose groups," which tend to be relatively small organizations formed to fulfill specialized functions often oriented toward the reform of a larger religious body or society as a whole. Such groups have a long history in the United States, but their numbers and membership seem to have grown tremendously in recent decades. For detailed analysis see Robert Wuthnow, "The Growth of Religious Reform Movements," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 480 (July 1985): 106-16; and The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
3. Most important are "religious special-purpose groups," which tend to be relatively small organizations formed to fulfill specialized functions often oriented toward the reform of a larger religious body or society as a whole. Such groups have a long history in the United States, but their numbers and membership seem to have grown tremendously in recent decades. For detailed analysis see Robert Wuthnow, "The Growth of Religious Reform Movements," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 480 (July 1985): 106-16; and The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
4. Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982). Olson's argument is but the most ambitious of attacks on the "rent-seeking" behavior of our "interest-group society" emanating from the public-choice school of political economy.
5. Robert D. Putnam, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Journal of Democracy 6 (January 1995): 65-78; and Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
6. Robert D. Putnam, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Journal of Democracy 6 (January 1995): 65-78; and Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
7. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 173 and 176.
8. Putnam elaborates the argument in his 1995 Ithiel de Sola Pool Lecture, where he focuses on explaining "the strange disappearance of social capital in America." See "Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America," PS: Political Science and Politics 28 (December 1995): 664-83.
9. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 167-75.
10. There are, in fact, what statistical analysis describes as "ecological correlation problems" with Putnam's data interpretation in some instances (see William S. Robinson, "Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals," American Sociological Review 15 [1950]: 351-57). The co-occurrence of civic associations and effective government in the same region does not demonstrate that the people in the associations are the ones making the government work. To address that question, one must systematically introduce a mediating level of analysis that can demonstrate the actual avenues of influence among civically engaged people, civic associations, and institutional performance. Were the civic organizations party-organized, however, it would be easier to demonstrate the links among party membership, associating in party civic associations, parties, interest articulation or aggregation, and institutional performance. In fact, parties apparently play an important role in northern Italy's civic life.
11. As Putnam puts it in a more recent article, "To the extent that the norms, networks, and trust link substantial sectors of the community and span underlying social cleavages - to the extent that the social capital is of a 'bridging' sort - then the enhanced cooperation is likely to serve broader interests and be widely welcomed." See "Tuning In, Tuning Out," 665.
12. Ted Perlmutter, "Italy: Why No Voluntary Sector?" in Robert Wuthnow, ed., Between States and Markets: The Voluntary Sector in Comparative Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 157.
13. Aleksander Smolar, "From Opposition to Atomization," Journal of Democracy 7 (January 1996): 26. Václav Havel continues to represent this stance, characterized by a discourse that is primarily moral. See Václav Havel and Václav Klaus, with commentary by Petr Pithart, "Rival Visions," Journal of Democracy 7 (January 1996): 12-23.
14. Aleksander Smolar, "From Opposition to Atomization," Journal of Democracy 7 (January 1996): 26. Václav Havel continues to represent this stance, characterized by a discourse that is primarily moral. See Václav Havel and Václav Klaus, with commentary by Petr Pithart, "Rival Visions," Journal of Democracy 7 (January 1996): 12-23.
15. For a striking look at the advantages - and dangers - of political alignment for social organizations, see Cathy Lisa Schneider, Shantytown Protest in Pinochet's Chile (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995). Schneider shows that Chilean Communist Party socialization in shantytowns that it controlled led to significantly higher levels of social organization, community solidarity, and protest than elsewhere, but that the militancy of these towns, and the Party's isolation once it turned to armed struggle, left them broken by repression and without political resources after Chile's limited democratic transition.
16. To our knowledge, the proliferation of social-movement and citizen-advocacy organizations was first discussed by John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald in The Trends of Social Movements in America (Morristown, Pa.: General Learning Press, 1973) and demonstrated empirically in the case of Washington-based groups by David King and Jack L. Walker, Jr., "An Ecology of Interest Groups in America," in Jack L. Walker, Jr., ed., Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Patrons, Professions and Social Movements (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 57-75; and for women's and racial- or ethnic- advocacy groups generally by Debra Minkoff, Organizing for Equality: The Evolution of Women's and Race-Ethnic Organizations in America, 1955-1985 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995). For similar accounts of nonprofit groups see P.D. Hall, Inventing the Nonprofit Sector (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) and Michael O'Neill, The Third America: The Emergence of the Nonprofit Sector in the United States (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 1989).
17. To our knowledge, the proliferation of social-movement and citizen-advocacy organizations was first discussed by John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald in The Trends of Social Movements in America (Morristown, Pa.: General Learning Press, 1973) and demonstrated empirically in the case of Washington-based groups by David King and Jack L. Walker, Jr., "An Ecology of Interest Groups in America," in Jack L. Walker, Jr., ed., Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Patrons, Professions and Social Movements (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 57-75; and for women's and racial- or ethnic- advocacy groups generally by Debra Minkoff, Organizing for Equality: The Evolution of Women's and Race-Ethnic Organizations in America, 1955-1985 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995). For similar accounts of nonprofit groups see P.D. Hall, Inventing the Nonprofit Sector (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) and Michael O'Neill, The Third America: The Emergence of the Nonprofit Sector in the United States (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 1989).
18. To our knowledge, the proliferation of social-movement and citizen-advocacy organizations was first discussed by John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald in The Trends of Social Movements in America (Morristown, Pa.: General Learning Press, 1973) and demonstrated empirically in the case of Washington-based groups by David King and Jack L. Walker, Jr., "An Ecology of Interest Groups in America," in Jack L. Walker, Jr., ed., Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Patrons, Professions and Social Movements (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 57-75; and for women's and racial- or ethnic- advocacy groups generally by Debra Minkoff, Organizing for Equality: The Evolution of Women's and Race-Ethnic Organizations in America, 1955-1985 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995). For similar accounts of nonprofit groups see P.D. Hall, Inventing the Nonprofit Sector (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) and Michael O'Neill, The Third America: The Emergence of the Nonprofit Sector in the United States (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 1989).
19. To our knowledge, the proliferation of social-movement and citizen-advocacy organizations was first discussed by John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald in The Trends of Social Movements in America (Morristown, Pa.: General Learning Press, 1973) and demonstrated empirically in the case of Washington-based groups by David King and Jack L. Walker, Jr., "An Ecology of Interest Groups in America," in Jack L. Walker, Jr., ed., Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Patrons, Professions and Social Movements (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 57-75; and for women's and racial- or ethnic- advocacy groups generally by Debra Minkoff, Organizing for Equality: The Evolution of Women's and Race-Ethnic Organizations in America, 1955-1985 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995). For similar accounts of nonprofit groups see P.D. Hall, Inventing the Nonprofit Sector (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) and Michael O'Neill, The Third America: The Emergence of the Nonprofit Sector in the United States (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 1989).
20. To our knowledge, the proliferation of social-movement and citizen-advocacy organizations was first discussed by John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald in The Trends of Social Movements in America (Morristown, Pa.: General Learning Press, 1973) and demonstrated empirically in the case of Washington-based groups by David King and Jack L. Walker, Jr., "An Ecology of Interest Groups in America," in Jack L. Walker, Jr., ed., Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Patrons, Professions and Social Movements (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 57-75; and for women's and racial- or ethnic- advocacy groups generally by Debra Minkoff, Organizing for Equality: The Evolution of Women's and Race-Ethnic Organizations in America, 1955-1985 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995). For similar accounts of nonprofit groups see P.D. Hall, Inventing the Nonprofit Sector (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) and Michael O'Neill, The Third America: The Emergence of the Nonprofit Sector in the United States (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 1989).
21. Only about one in four of these national groups is based in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. See John C. Brainard, ed., The Directory of National Environmental Organizations, 4th ed. (St. Paul, Minn.: Environmental Directories, 1992).
22. Topsfield Foundation, Grassroots Peace Directory (Pomfret, Conn.: no pub., 1987); Brainard, ed., Directory of National Environmental Organizations; Myra Marx Ferree and Patricia Yancy Martin, eds., Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the New Women's Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995).
23. Topsfield Foundation, Grassroots Peace Directory (Pomfret, Conn.: no pub., 1987); Brainard, ed., Directory of National Environmental Organizations; Myra Marx Ferree and Patricia Yancy Martin, eds., Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the New Women's Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995).
24. Topsfield Foundation, Grassroots Peace Directory (Pomfret, Conn.: no pub., 1987); Brainard, ed., Directory of National Environmental Organizations; Myra Marx Ferree and Patricia Yancy Martin, eds., Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the New Women's Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995).
25. Putnam dismisses thousands of community-based nonprofit service organizations in similar fashion by equating their potential for producing "social capital" with that of the Ford Foundation, the Mayo Clinic, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Only if the tremendous growth in the "nonprofit sector" over recent decades were attributable primarily to growth among the large national-level groups specifically mentioned by Putnam would his assessment of the sector as a whole be well founded. His argument appears to be on sounder footing in "Tuning In, Tuning Out," where he appeals to evidence from a variety of national studies, including the General Social Survey, to show that participation in organizations has been declining since the late 1960s. Nevertheless, the use of participation in general as a stand-in for "social capital" makes even this data questionable, as Putnam himself argues that "who benefits from these connections, norms, and trust - the individual, the wider community, or some faction within the community - must be determined empirically, not definitionally" (p. 665) - essentially the point we make below.
26. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Doubleday, 1969), 193, 524, and 192. It is curious that Larry Diamond, in his synthesis of ideas on the role of civil society in democratic consolidation, "Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation," Journal of Democracy 5 (July 1994): 8, should quote the "free schools" passage as referring to civil, rather than political, associations. Like Putnam, Diamond wishes to exclude political parties from "civil society," and he would dole out similar treatment to civil associations that refuse to be "civil" in their behavior (p. 11).
27. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Doubleday, 1969), 193, 524, and 192. It is curious that Larry Diamond, in his synthesis of ideas on the role of civil society in democratic consolidation, "Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation," Journal of Democracy 5 (July 1994): 8, should quote the "free schools" passage as referring to civil, rather than political, associations. Like Putnam, Diamond wishes to exclude political parties from "civil society," and he would dole out similar treatment to civil associations that refuse to be "civil" in their behavior (p. 11).
28. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 190-91.
29. Larry Diamond, more explicitly than Putnam, would simply exclude from "civil society" those groups whose ends or behavior might threaten democratic governance. See Diamond, "Rethinking," 11. Such an expedient makes the civil society argument nicely circular, and it denies us the opportunity to understand how real societies work.
30. Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
31. Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
32. Others solve this dilemma by positing conditions that must be met for civil society to work its magic. Groups must be "moderate" and restrained in their demands; they should be democratic themselves or at least support democracy; they should be institutionalized and have a stake in the system; they should not reinforce social cleavages, but cut across them; and so on. The circularity of such condition-setting should be apparent.
33. There appears to be no relation, for example, between the changes in the character of Italian regional politics and politicians that Putnam's research uncovered and the "civicness" of the regions. Rather, Putnam ascribes the increased moderation and efficacy that he found to the new institutions (the regional governments), not to the civic culture in which some of them were embedded. The increased responsiveness of government represented by the new institutions was the key to their success, though Putnam shows that success varied in character and degree from region to region.
34. There are, of course, versions of the civil society argument in which social movements and social activists play a central role. Michael Walzer's article, cited in note 1 above, is one of them. Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato, in Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), present an extensively elaborated version. In neither case, however, do the authors take sufficiently seriously the difficulty of divided or "dangerous" civil societies.
35. There is generally a close correlation between individual participation in any association and broader civic engagement; see Samuel Barnes and Max Kaase, Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979). Nonetheless, it seems likely that specifically political associations (whether social-movement organizations, interest groups, or political parties) are more conducive to promoting civic engagement than many other sorts of association. That would certainly be in keeping with Tocqueville's argument. Like many other aspects of the civil society argument, however, it remains an intriguing empirical question.
36. Walzer, "Civil Society Argument," 102-3. See also Diamond, "Rethinking," 15-16.
37. Walzer, "Civil Society Argument," 102-3. See also Diamond, "Rethinking," 15-16.
38. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968). Huntington's notion of parties as necessary channels for political participation in modern and modernizing societies relied heavily on the ordering and controlling functions of parties. His favorite example, the Leninist communist parties of the time, proved a fickle choice, because they failed precisely to incorporate the responsiveness that makes successful democracies work but which Huntington systematically ignored in his account of the sort of "institutionalization" necessary to achieve political "order."
39. Given the social significance of bowling in the United States as documented in "Bowling Alone," informally organized groups of nonleague bowlers merit some consideration. On recent excursions to AMF East Carolina Bowl one of the authors of the present essay observed dozens of people bowling without benefit of league sponsorship. Contrary to Putnam's "whimsical, yet discomfiting" example, however, no one was bowling alone.