Civil Society, Pluralism Polyarchy, Interest and Pressure Groups

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Civil Society, Pluralism Polyarchy, Interest and
Pressure Groups

• The challenge to authoritarian societies

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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?

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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 didnt run for
  office or try to become government
• Distinction more blurred now

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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

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And now, Civil Society

• Eastern Europe, Gramsci and revisionists
• Gramsci critique of Lenins universality
• Explanation of difference between West and East
  Europe
• Need for different tactics by revolutionary
• Civil society meant couldnt just seize the state
  and the revolution was victorious. Long March
  through institutions

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Different traditions

• Classical tradition
• Scottish
• Marx

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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?

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Scholarly Bias

• 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

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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

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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.

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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

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• 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

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• E. Shils defines CS
• beyond the boundaries of the family and clan and
  beyond the localitylying short of the state.
  The Virtue of Civil Society, Government
  Opposition 26 (1992).

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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.

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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.