Do we expect too much of civil society?

Over recent years, ‘civil society strengthening’ has become a central preoccupation of the development brigade. The INTRAC 10th Anniversary Conference provided a rare opportunity for influential development players to reflect critically on the terms of their trade – and in particular on the high expectations that have come to be associated with ‘civil society’ .

Alan Fowler, a founding INTRAC associate, kicked off the debate with an argument, against conventional wisdom, that civil society is not actually a sector with well-defined boundaries. Instead, he posed a more complex notion of a civic system that interacts and overlaps with both socio-political and socio-economic systems.

Academics Jude Howell and Jenny Pearce looked at contending consensual and conflictual models of civil society, observing that there has been a tendency in Western aid practice to put forward a depoliticized, consensual or win-win model that is more or less universally applicable. Like Fowler, they pressed for a richer, more complex understanding that recognizes unequal power relationships and the dynamic role of conflict – within civil society and between it and other sectors. Emphasizing the huge differences of context internationally, Howell and Pearce were clear that in civil society strengthening ‘one size does not fit all’. A large dose of humility was prescribed for civil society capacity builders, along with the recognition that real, existing civil society does not lend itself to external social engineering.

If civil society has failed to meet expectations of a virtuous, watertight compartment, it follows that aid practitioners must now struggle with a more confusing and shifting phenomenon: a civil society that is interwoven and interdependent with other social spheres as well as with the multiple identities of actual – not theoretical – citizens. Rajesh Tandon, of PRIA (India), spoke powerfully of these concurrent identities, arising from tradition, ethnicity, religion, interest, profession, etc. And it may be the case that in times of stress and social upheaval, people revert to less ‘modern’ bonds of association like clan and creed. In a real world of multiple identities and potentially conflicting affinities, do we load too many expectations for social cohesion on the fragile back of civic and voluntary association?
 
Participants challenged the dominance of NGOism and the failure of aid practice and thinking to embrace the immense diversity of civil society – including a largely hidden world of informal and traditional associations. Fowler and Tandon both advocated a search for new centres of civic energy, and a willingness on the part of the aid system to engage where it has previously feared to tread.

In a concluding address, Rajesh Tandon spoke powerfully of the need to identify and widen the civic space in which meaningful citizen participation, especially of the poor, can take place. As the shockwaves of 11 September continue to reverberate, he warned that the continued exclusion of millions from civic space was a sure recipe for the proliferation of ‘un-civil society’ and violent reaction.

Barry Smith is Director of Development and Public Affairs, CIVICUS. He can be contacted at barry@civicus.org

EVENT INTRAC 10th Anniversary Conference
Date 13-15 December 2001
Venue Oxford, UK
Theme Changing Expectations: The Concept and Practice of Civil Society in International Development