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Several decades ago, the two-volume Democracy and Civil Society and Civil Society and the State: New European Perspectives (1988) made an appeal for reclaiming the old category of civil society and placing it at the heart of the contemporary human sciences. First revived in Japan during the 1960s, the term civil society featured prominently in the
Political Reflections on Antarctica – Workshop Description
The 2012 Annual Symposium of The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) Tuesday, 20 November 2012, Canberra Workshop Description Background: Social science perspectives on Antarctica are limited in scope and quantity. In the fields of political science, international relations, legal studies and public policy, there is ample literature on subjects such as governance [...]
Refolution in the Arab world
A new word is needed to describe these events of recent months. They should be called ‘refolutions’, radical refusals of the old choice between reform and revolution – remarkably sensitive to the grave dangers and high costs of using violent means to get their way. Read the text here
Refolution in the Arab world
Great revolutionary convulsions typically trigger long-lasting reflections on their causes and consequences. The European tradition of political thinking harbours many well-known examples, including Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Harold Laski’s Reflections on the Revolution of Our Times (1943) and Ralf Dahrendorf’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (1990). There are not [...]
A Productive Challenge: Unelected Representatives Can Enrich Democracy
During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, in various parts of the Atlantic region, the meaning of citizenship was profoundly transformed by the advent of representative democracy. Central to its definition and functioning was the principle that citizens in a democratic state are entitled periodically to elect candidates to representative assemblies and executive offices [...]
Über die Einbettung des Marktes in die globale Zivilgesellschaft
Translated by Philipp Schwertmann for the 2004 Yearbook of the University of Goettingen “Wirtschaft und Zivilgesellschaft” • Zivilgesellschaftlicher Purismus Welche Kräfte treiben heute die Globalisierung der Zivilgesellschaft voran? Viele Aktivisten und einige ihrer intellektuellen Unterstützer lassen keine Zweifel an der richtigen Antwort: Die globale Zivilgesellschaft beweist die Macht autonomer moralischer Wahlmöglichkeit und moralischen Handelns. Sie [...]
Eleven Theses on Markets and Civil Society
1. The Centrality of Markets During the modernization of the concept of civil society that took place in the Atlantic region between the years 1776 and 1848, every commentator on commodity production and exchange thought of markets as an organizing principle of civil society. Some praised, some criticised, some remained ambivalent about markets and their [...]
Democracy in the Age of Google, Facebook and WikiLeaks
In the beginning there was the grand spectacle of a worldwide satellite television broadcast, featuring Maria Callas, Pablo Picasso and the Beatles. Then came fax machines, photocopiers, video recorders and personal computers. Now there are electronic books, scanners and smart phones converted into satellite navigators and musical instruments; cloud computing, interactive video technology and speak-to-tweets, [...]
Democracy in Egypt
The Egyptian revolution came not from the intellectual elite or opposition parties, but via Facebook and the Twitterverse, from the young men and women of Egypt fed up with autocratic, geriatric rule. Nor are they interested in a theocracy. Does this mean we’ve seen the end of an era which began with the Iranian Islamic [...]
Civil Society Related Books & Publications
Global Civil Society Civil Society: Old Images New Visions The Media & Democracy Democracy & Civil Society Public Life & Late Capitalism Civil Society and the State Civil Society: Berlin Perspectives
Prof. John Keane on Egypt’s revolution
There is no Khomeini and more than that I would say that there’s been a learning process in the region; that revolutions can devour their own children. There is an awareness that the main strategy is to set up checks and balances to prevent that kind of take over and I think that so far [...]