The essays in this volume, focus on this distinction in their consideration of Hegel's political philosophy - his attempted (re)construction of modern ethical ...

The twentieth-century Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd left behind an impressive canon of philosophical works and has continued to influence a scholarly community in Europe and North America, which has extended, critiqued, and applied his thought in many academic fields. Jonathan Chaplin introduces Dooyeweerd for the first time to many English readers by critically expounding Dooyeweerd's social and political thought and by exhibiting its pertinence to contemporary civil society debates. Chaplin begins by contextualizing Dooyeweerd's thought, first in relation to (...) present-day debates and then in relation to the work of the Dutch philosopher Abraham Kuyper. Chaplin outlines the distinctive theory of historical and cultural development that serves as an essential backdrop to Dooyeweerd's substantive social philosophy; examines Dooyeweerd's notion of societal structural principles; and sets forth his complex classification of particular types of social structure and their various interrelationships. Chaplin provides a detailed examination of Dooyeweerd's theory of the state, its definitive nature, and its proper role vis-a-vis other elements of society. Dooyeweerd's contributions, Chaplin concludes, assist us in mapping the ways in which state and civil society should be related to achieve justice and the public good. "This superb study simultaneously introduces and critically engages the work of one of the most important and neglected Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, while showing its connection to the pluralist tradition and bringing it to bear on the contemporary debate about civil society. More than just providing an overview of Dooyeweerd's thought, it seeks to advance his intellectual project and show its contemporary relevance. It is essential reading not only for those interested in the neo-Calvinist tradition, but for anyone interested in Christian social thought, structural pluralism, or the nature and fate of civil society." --_Kenneth L. Grasso, Texas State University _ "The subtlety, scope, and insightfulness of Dooyeweerd's social philosophy were unparalleled among Protestant thinkers in the past century. Yet his contributions are not well known. Jonathan Chaplin promises to remedy this neglect. His lucid and masterful study brings a new and transformative voice to contemporary debates about the future of a democratic society." --_Lambert Zuidervaart, Institute for Christian Studies and University of Toronto_ "Finally, an authoritative book that brings to brilliant light and life Herman Dooyeweerd's Christian philosophy of law, politics, and society. For the past half century, the profound and original teachings of this prolific Dutch sage have been lost on most readers. Jonathan Chaplin has rescued Dooyeweerd from his own obscure prose, poor translations, and cultic mystique to reveal his astonishing and engaging insights into our lives as persons and peoples, rulers and citizens, preachers and parishioners, parents and children. This will be the go-to book on Dooyeweerd for many years to come." --_John Witte, Jr., Emory University_ "Herman Dooyeweerd was both deep and original. Much of his writing is an articulation of rather undeveloped lines of thought in his Dutch predecessor, Abraham Kuyper. In the course of his exposition, Chaplin effectively highlights Dooyeweerd's significance for a theory of civil society and for present-day social theory in general." --_Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University and the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Virginia_. (shrink)

Foucauldian analyses of civil society depart from classical approaches in that they don´t consider civil society to be a site of societal change or resistance as classical analyses do, but rather one of society’s multiple locations where so-called governmentality hits the ground. Although Foucauldian investigations have provided the prevailing discussion with a necessary departure from excessively idealistic images of civil society organizations as sites of resistance and societal transformation, what may have resulted in (...) turn are overly pessimistic analyses that have overlooked the emancipatory aspects of civil society organizations as sites where Foucauldian “care of the self” becomes possible. This article provides the reader with an analysis of these kind of aspects in civil society organizations’ work and, more importantly, of the conditions of their existence. The study contributes to the prevailing discussion by offering examples of the possibilities that civil society organizations have to act as a counterbalance and addition to states institutions. The context is Finnish drug treatment policies that took a client-centered and user-friendly approach at the turn of 21st century. Since then new kinds of methods to work with drug users have been initiated, which have helped the users to recast their identities and find new ways of living as a drug user. (shrink)

Spurred by recent governmental transitions from dictatorships to democratic institutions, this highly original work argues that negotiated civil society-oriented transitions have an affinity for a distinctive method of constitution making— one that accomplishes the radical change of institutions through legal continuity. Arato presents a compelling argument that this is the preferred method for rapidly establishing viable democratic institutions, and he contrasts the negotiated model with radical revolutionary change. This exceptionally engaging work will be of interest to students and (...) scholars of comparative politics, constitutional law, and East European studies. (shrink)

The paper examines briefly Kant's and Fichte's, and more thoroughly, Hegel's theses on womanhood and their social and political consequences. It shows, taking Hegel as a case study, that the idealists' conceptual frameworks should have led them to recognize the rights of women, and, importantly, in Kant's and Hegel's case, that they implicitly did so. However, they chose to repress these unwanted outcomes behind teachings that were more in line with the beliefs of their time. This tension, it is (...) argued in conclusion, is indicative of a conceptual crux that is specific to German idealism, but whose effects can still be perceived today. (shrink)

The rise of global civil society as a new discourse in the last century, in the new century has been of concern. Western academic circles around the concept of global civil society, global civil society and the emergence and development of global civil society influence on the political realities and trends and other issues had extensive discussions and the formation of a different theoretical framework and research camp. While the Western world made (...) ​​a series of civil society, research results, but still insufficient to demonstrate the normative study, mainly confined to the liberal democratic framework of the inadequacies of the middle. China scholars have been from international relations, political science and political philosophy point of view about global civil society, but in general, the power of research in this area is still relatively weak, insufficient results, further research needs to be made. As a word rising from the late of last century, Global Civil Society is very attractable in the early new century. Western academy has initiated abroad discussion on the concept of GCS, the process of its formation and development, its impact on political realities and its future. In the discussion, theory analysis frames and theory camps have already come into being. Though a great achievements have been gotten, there are still some deficiencies lie in the Western studies, such as lacking of normative studies and main studies are limited in the frames of liberal democracy. In China some scholars have studied about GCS from the views of international relationship, political science and political philosophy. But as a whole, research force in the realm is still weak and the fruits are insufficient, deep discussion is needed. (shrink)

This article deals with civil society organizations active in the field of family policy and demographic issues in contemporary Russia. This article uses Michel Foucault’s concepts of biopolitics and governmentality and later developments discussing technologies of citizenship. More specifically, using interviews, documents, and participant observations, so-called “daddy-schools” that have emerged in and around Saint Petersburg since 2008, are studied as a mode of governmentality. The analysis shows how the civic initiative studied attempted to empower fathers and how it (...) has altered demographic discourses while approaching similar societal goals as the state does in its biopolitical strategies. Thus, the daddy-schools provide a complementary discourse concerning fatherhood while approaching the same perceived demographic crisis that the Russian state is challenged by. (shrink)

The idea of civil society is one of the oldest and most contested in Western political and sociological thought. Among the social sciences, anthropology has been the discipline that has prompted the boldest critiques of the concept. This paper argues that the “revival” of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe in one particular field—that of environmental activism—has been contingent with the outcomes of EU enlargement policies. I introduce the case study of one of the (...) most complex and contested transport development projects in Central Eastern Europe: the Budapest Ring Road. I maintain that within the EU enlargement project alternative forms of political power have been built from below and that they eventually come to compete with the state (and local governments) to influence decision-making processes. These forms, to be individuated in the emergence of environmental activism, take shape at local, state and transnational levels and aim, although often contradictorily, at restituting political agency under the condition of lowering public participation in decision-making processes. (shrink)

External economic aid has played an important role in Northern Ireland’s peacebuilding process, particularly by funding community-based intervention projects.As a consequence of the Troubles, Northern Ireland suffered from severe socioeconomic inequality. These locally funded projects have fostered social cohesion by encouraging cross community interaction aimed at reducing violence and sectarianism. The NGO projects also promote social justice, reduce inequality, and provide the means to meet people’s basic human needs. The field research for this article was conducted during the summer of (...) 2010 and explores the perceptions of 120 civil society leaders and funding agency development officers on the effectiveness of the aid from the IFI and EU Peace III Fund in creating local social-economic NGOs to promote equity, equality, and social justice. The findings of this study reveal significant diversity in the respondents’ descriptions of the aids’s role in promoting equality, equity, and social justice as well as their expressed hopes and frustrations regarding its overall effectiveness. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to argue the thesis that, 25 years after the fall of communism, with the exception of former Yugoslavia, there has been and still is, a lack of „women’s movements“ in the post-communist countries. The author also proposes some explanations as to why there are dozens of women’s organizations but no women’s movements. In order to support her thesis, Raynova emphasizes the difference between “women’s movements”, “feminist movements” and “social movements”, and shows the weakness of (...) some current definitions. Instead of a definition, she indicates the conditions for a women’s movement, which are: (1.) women’s oppression and discrimination as a prevalent situation, which motivates a movement when that situation is perceived as intolerable; (2.) ideas and concrete strategies on how to proceed in order to change this situation; (3.) some kind of organization or leading personalities, able to coordinate and unite women in a mass movement and to ensure continuity of action until the goals of the movement are achieved; and (4.) large masses of women who are motivated and ready to fight resolutely for changing their situation. The provided analyses show that these conditions have not been always given, but that the persisting problems of women’s problems can be resolved only if women engage more actively in civil society so as to enforce their claims. (shrink)

Forest Ecosystem Services are widely recognised by the society nowadays. However, no study in the literature has analysed a ranking of FES after the pandemic. This paper investigated civil society’s perception and knowledge toward these services; in addition, the presence of attitudinal or behavioural patterns regarding individual’s preference, was assessed. A choice experiment was conducted using the Best-Worst Scaling method on a sample of 479 individuals intercepted in the Argentera Valley, in the Western Italian Alps. Results, (...) showed a strong interest in biodiversity, aesthetic landscape quality and psychophysical health and a lower interest in provisioning services. Based on the individual preferences, civil society was clustered into five groups for FES, named “Hedonistic,” “Individualist with cultural and health interests,” “Sensitive to regulatory and utilitarian functions,” “Climate change sensitive” and “Livelihood and hedonistic wellbeing.” In general, there was a growing appreciation by civil society for the intangible services offered by the forest, driven by modern lifestyles and an interest in learning more about the provided services. Based on these elements, we believe that similar research should be extended to other mountain contexts to validate the results or to find new insights, and that it is now necessary to study how to involve civil society in decision-making processes of forest planning and management at a local level. (shrink)

Although intellectuals have been a part of the cultural landscape, it is in post-conflict societies, such as those found in Kosovo and Bosnia, that there has arisen a need for an intellectual who is more than simply a social critic, an educator, a man of action, and a compassionate individual. Enter the hyperintellectual. As this essay will make clear, it is the hyperintellectual, who through a reciprocating critique and defense of both the nationalist enterprise and strong interventionism of the International (...) Community, as well as being a man of action and compassionate and empathic insider, strives to create a climate of understanding and to enlarge the moral space so as to reduce the divisiveness between opposing parties. In this way the hyperintellectual becomes a catalyst for the creation of a democratic culture within the civil societies of Kosovo and Bosnia. (shrink)

The present work approaches a series of wide exploratory investigations in the Romanian rural area, most recently in Livezile-Rimetea micro-region (Apuseni Mountains). Within the civil society and public participation debate context, the study focuses on the variable of religious affiliation (orthodox, non-orthodox), which differentiates the real potential public participation at the population level in the studied area. The immediate conclusion to be drawn is that in the differences in religious affiliation induce variations in expressing the civic activism (...) and in the real or the potential public participation. At the end of our study, the paradox of public participation as diminishing factor of the civil society role is taken into account and this concerns new reflections and investigations on the subject. (shrink)

In view of a rapid succession of events in the contemporary world, on both the political and the scientific levels, it is indeed essential to say more about the subject of democracy in the civil society. If by democracy we mean not only a form of govern- ment but also a system of living, then indeed a unanimous judgment and also a general conception cannot be expected, but nevertheless the concept need not to be debased to the stage (...) of complete meaninglessness. (shrink)

Think tanks became key political and economic actors during the twentieth century, creating and occupying an intellectual and political position between academic institutions, the state, civil society, and public debate on organization and management. Think tanks are especially active in setting frames for what constitutes politically and socially acceptable ways of thinking about economic activity and the rights or obligations of corporations. Their operation and influence has been acknowledged and analysed in political science and policy analysis, but in (...) organization and management studies they are almost entirely ignored. In this paper, we review the existing literature on think tanks to develop an ethical–political framework based on a Gramsci’s account of state–civil society relations, referring to historical case materials relating to a significant Brazilian think tank, the Instituto de Pesquisas e Estudos Sociais. We show how the IPES was successful in bringing then-controversial neoliberal perspectives on management and organization into mainstream political debate, where they could be discussed and ultimately accepted as morally and intellectually legitimate. We note the importance of management education and business schools with respect to think tanks in the development of a hegemonic pro-capitalist interpretation of corporate responsibility, and suggest this is worth more investigation. We conclude by outlining how think tanks are central to civil society acceptance of pro-corporate ideologies, how they might be researched regarding the ethical implications of the work they do, and how our approach provides a foundation for this. (shrink)

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have significantly impacted on the politics of health research and the field of bioethics. In the globalHIVepidemic,CSOs have served a pivotal stakeholder role. The dire need for development of new prevention technologies has raised critical challenges for the ethical engagement of community stakeholders inHIVresearch. This study explored the perspectives ofCSOrepresentatives involved inHIVprevention trials (HPTs) on the impact of premature trial closures on stakeholder engagement. Fourteen respondents fromSouthAfrican and internationalCSOs representing activist and advocacy groups, (...) community mobilisation initiatives, and human and legal rights groups were purposively sampled based on involvement inHPTs. Interviews were conducted fromFebruary‐May 2010. Descriptive analysis was undertaken across interviews and key themes were developed inductively.CSOrepresentatives largely described positive outcomes of recent microbicide andHIVvaccine trial terminations, particularly inSouthAfrica, which they attributed to improvements in stakeholder engagement. Ongoing challenges to community engagement included the need for principled justifications for selective stakeholder engagement at strategic time‐points, as well as the need for legitimate alternatives toCABs as mechanisms for engagement. Key issues forCSOs in relation to research were also raised. (shrink)

This book focuses on Andrew Arato’s democratic theory and its relevance to contemporary issues such as processes of democratization, civil society, constitution-making, and the modern Executive. Andrew Arato is -both globally and disciplinarily- a prominent thinker in the fields of democratic theory, constitutional law, and comparative politics, influencing several generations of scholars. This is the first volume to systematically address his democratic theory. Including contributions from leading scholars such as Dick Howard, Ulrich Preuss, Hubertus Buchstein, Janos Kis, Uri (...) Ram, Leonardo Avritzer, Carlos de la Torre, and Nicolás Lynch, this book is organized around three major areas of Arato´s influence on contemporary political and social thought. The first section offers a comprehensive view of Arato’s scholarship from his early work on critical theory and Western Marxism to his current research on constitution-making and its application. The second section shifts its focus from the previous, comprehensive approach, to a much more specific one: Arato´s widespread influence on the study of civil society in democratization processes in Latin America. The third section includes a previously unpublished work, ‘A conceptual history of dictatorship (and its rivals,)’ one of the few systematic interrogations on the meaning of a political form of fundamental relevance in the contemporary world. Critical Theory and Democracy will be of interest to critical and social theorists, and all Arato scholars. (shrink)

The history of science and technology has been a scholarly discipline with little attention given to the special needs of undergraduate teaching. What needs to be done to transform a discipline to an undergraduate subject? Suggestions include using the relation between science and technology as well as the role of interpreters in formulation of the popular world view. Relations with science and history departments are considered. Curriculum materials are surveyed with some recommendations for correcting deficiencies.

In contrast to those who trace civil society to “community” per se, Foucault is keen to locate this concept as it emerges at a particular moment in respect of specific exigencies of government. He suggests that civil society is a novel way of thinking about a problem, a particular problematization of government that emerges in the eighteenth century and which combines incommensurable conceptions of the subject as simultaneously a subject of right and of interests. This article (...) takes up Foucault’s discussion of the Scottish Enlightenment in The Birth of Biopolitics to trace the distinctiveness of his discussion of civil society, but also in order to suggest that we ought to pay closer attention to the tensions between commercial-civilizational and civic republican themes in the literature of the late eighteenth century than does Foucault. It is my tentative suggestion that Foucault’s account leaves out significant aspects of these debates that offer counter-valences to the dominant models of the subject available to contemporary political discourse. (shrink)

Ronald Preston defended the middle axiom approach to doing Christian social ethics developed by J. H. Oldham for the 1937 ‘Life and Work’ conference. Preston argued that middle axioms continue to offer the churches a relevant ecumenical method. Middle axions has since been subject to fundamental criticism by ethicists such as Duncan Forrester. It will be argued that a case study of the Church of Scotland's contribution to the devolution debate, as part of Scottish civil society, supports (...) Preston's defence of the middle axiom approach as a relevant form of political engagement in the new context of local-global politics. (shrink)

In this article, we suggest that one of the unexplored paths toward collaboration between firms and civil society organizations starts with confrontation or potential conflict, and that the transition toward collaboration can be further understood if one focuses on triadic relationships rather than dyadic ones. We analyze the presence of third parties and their different roles to explain how collaboration is facilitated. The article aims at bringing together the bodies of research on business–civil society confrontation and (...) on business–civil society collaboration. It offers a comparative analysis of four case studies, and proposes a typology of third parties composed of facilitating allies, participating allies, mediators, and solution seekers. We conclude with some implications for further research as well as for practice. (shrink)

Radical Civility unearths civility's extraordinary potential by addressing why the virtue has fallen into crisis, recalling the injunctions that transpose utopia upon the stingy politics of likelihood, and by offering a vision of citizens who find purpose in dignifying each other. Jason Caro takes a three pronged approach; first identifying the effects of the misuse of civility, then expanding the meaning of civility, and finally offering applied examples of civility. Civility bears its participants to utopia. Such utopia has many forms: (...) the politics of unlikelihood, the civil community, the ideal civility situation, or charmocracy. Unlike many studies of political manners, Caro embraces the relation between the virtue and politeness. Civility is then the effort to have politics charm. Caro draws out the full potential of the virtue by observing how such politeness is a particular mode of communicative action whereby participants are not merely exchanging face-saving gestures but constructing utopia. This radical stance raises the stakes of the debate on civility by setting the book implacably against realism and its politics of likelihood. It will appeal to those in the social sciences, cultural studies, social psychology, philosophy, communication, and peace studies. (shrink)

While Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is often seen to involve voluntary and deliberative approaches such as certification, governments have recently stepped into the picture through national legislation. France’s Law on Duty of Vigilance adopted in 2017 is a landmark case of such legislation. Years of voluntary CSR certification schemes led by Civil Society were replaced by a new philosophy of fighting for mandatory CSR controlled by a judge. We depict the change of mindset and the related change of (...) roles inside the coalition of Civil Society actors represents a Machiavellian Moment. The combination of collective civil society actors’ roles (namely nongovernmental organizations and labor unions) as Machiavellian _Virtue_ with disruptive events as Machiavellian _Fortuna_ made the law’s adoption possible. Based on this case study, we provide an analysis of civil society roles in the development of CSR-related legislation. (shrink)

Over the past decade, teaching and learning in virtual worlds has been at the forefront of many higher education institutions around the world. The DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group (VWWG) consisting of Australian and New Zealand higher education academics was formed in 2009. These educators are investigating the role that virtual worlds play in the future of education and actively changing the direction of their own teaching practice and curricula. 47 academics reporting on 28 Australian higher education institutions (...) present an overview of how they have changed directions through the effective use of virtual worlds for diverse teaching and learning activities such as business scenarios and virtual excursions, role-play simulations, experimentation and language development. The case studies offer insights into the ways in which institutions are continuing to change directions in their teaching to meet changing demands for innovative teaching, learning and research in virtual worlds. This paper highlights the ways in which the authors are using virtual worlds to create opportunities for rich, immersive and authentic activities that would be difficult or not possible to achieve through more traditional approaches. (shrink)

Future of religious observance.--Some thoughts on the transition from paganism to Christianity.--The civilization of Christendom.--Old problems under new names.--Are we agnostics?--The communication of moral ideas as a function of an ethical society.--Right and wrong in feeling.--Training in enjoyment.--Luxury and refinement.--The antithesis between individualism and socialism philosophically considered.--Liberty and legislation.

The English translation of Habermas's The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere converges with the revival of the "political culture concept" in the social sciences. Surprisingly, Habermas's account of the Western bourgeois public sphere has much in common with the original political culture concept associated with Parsonian modernization theory in the 1950s and 1960s. In both cases, the concept of political culture is used in a way that is neither political nor cultural. Explaining this peculiarity is the central problem addressed (...) in this article and its companion piece, which appeared in Sociological Theory, volume 3, number 2 (1995). I hypothesize that this is the case because the concept itself is embedded in an historically constituted political culture (here called a conceptual network)-a structured web of conceptual relationships that combine into Anglo-American citizenship theory. The method of an historical sociology of concept formation is used to analyze historically and empirically the internal constraints and dynamics of this conceptual network. The method draws from new work in cultural history and sociology, social studies, and network, narrative, and institutional analysis. This research yields three empirical findings: this conceptual network has a narrative structure, here called the Anglo-American citizenship story; this narrative is grafted onto an epistemology of social naturalism; and these elements combine in a metanarrative that continues to constrain empirical research in political sociology. (shrink)

This study is inspired by thesis that philosophy constructs its subject all through a certain normative perspective. Philosophical setting of cosmopolitanism question, how to establish society of free and equal “citizens of the world” by means of universalistic morals, gives only the normative horizon of expectations which turns our look down on the irrational reality. Irrational reality can be defined by the notion of “society of worldly risk” used by Ulrich Beck for identifying the time affected with (...) every possible disaster. Disasters adduce how uncertain are the foundations on which we have built a national state and thereby democracy. The more the risks are becoming global, the more we are becoming enforced to a “worldly-civil awareness”. Despite of acknowledging risks which are becoming more global, we are primarily the “citizens of the state” and not the “citizens of the world”. We can not, however, deny national state boundaries losing their significance. Starting with presumption how worldly society is more a joint market, the intention is to put accent on “cosmopolitan dimension” of trans-national demarcation in order to develop universalistic morals of worldly-civil society, considering the future of democracy. (shrink)

This article honors Bela H. Banathy's work in social systems design and acknowledges his intellectual, professional, and humanitarian gifts to the system sciences community. The author examines Banathy's epistemology of conscious self-guided evolution and how it has influenced the author's thinking and research in design of educational systems, and in particular the study of education's role as an evolutionary guidance system for civil society. Specifically, the author examines Banathy's notions of evolutionary guidance systems (EGSs) and the design (...) inquiry process. Design conversation is elaborated as a communication method for systems design and as a medium for communicative democracy. The concepts of civil society and democracy are examined in depth, providing an etymological analysis of each as a foundation for civil society as an ideal image. Consideration is given to Banathy's ideas of democracy and the New Agoras as ethical systems for the pursuit of conscious evolution. The author presents his considerations for education as an EGS for conscious evolution of civil society. (shrink)

Although contemporary Confucianists tend to view Western liberalism as pitting the individual against society, recent liberal scholarship has vigorously claimed that liberal polity is indeed grounded in the self-transformation that produces “liberal virtues.” To meet this challenge, this essay presents a sophisticated Confucian critique of liberalism by arguing that there is an appreciable contrast between liberal and Confucian self-transformation and between liberal and Confucian virtues. By contrasting Locke and Confucius, key representatives of each tradition, this essay shows that both (...) liberalism and Confucianism aim to reconstruct a society freed from antisocial passions entailing a vicious politics of resentment, and yet come to differing ethical and political resolutions. My key claim is that what makes Confucian self-cultivation so distinctive is the incorporation of ritual propriety ( li ) within it, whereas liberal self-transformation that relies heavily on a method of self-control comes back to the problem that it originally set out to overcome. (shrink)