Habermasian Thinking on Civil Society and the Public Sphere in the Age of Globalization

ABSTRACT

In today's age of increasing globalization and the emergence of global public policy issues, the concepts of civil society, public sphere, and the legitimacy of the legal system require further analytical scrutiny and philosophical reflection. As such, this article reflects on how the renowned German philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas, in his Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (1996), addressed and reflected on the notions of civil society, the public sphere, and the legitimacy of the legal system. As Habermas admitted that barriers do exist within the civil society and the public sphere, the article examines the various ways of overcoming the barriers toward the full actualization of the civil society's emancipatory potential. The article shows its conceptual arguments through the use of empirical examples vis-à-vis the arguments of Habermas, and most importantly, that Habermasian insights need to be cast at the transnational level of democratic politics, rather than within the strict confines of political processes within the nation-state.     

Mungiki,Vernacular Organization and Political Society in Kenya

This article uses the concept of ‘political society’ as unfolded by the ‘subaltern studies’ in India to shed new light on present‐day political actors and democratic transitions in Africa. It discusses the political practices and discursive terrains of organizations within ‘really existing’ civil society that are based on identities and regarded as outside legitimate civil society. It looks at politics from below, taking the example of the 2007 elections in Kenya, and the role of Mungiki, an organization characterized by the intersection of class, generation, religion and ethnicity. Mungiki builds on Kenya's history and rich archive of indigenous popular culture. It originated in the early 1990s’ turmoil of ‘ethnic clashes’ and population displacement and now operates in rural and poor urban areas, providing income opportunities, service delivery and extortion/protection. During elections, sections of Mungiki have been recruited by political leaders and functioned as violent militia; concurrently, it seeks representation in formal and parliamentary politics. The organization is distinct from ‘respectable’ segments of Kenya's civil society who participate in NGO activities and mainstream churches. The article ends by calling for an inclusive and non‐normative approach to the study of state–civil society engagement that recognizes culturally based discourses and organizations when analysing the transitions to and the broadening of democracy in post‐colonial societies.     

Space,Social Relations,and Contestation: Transformative Peacebuilding and World Social Forum Climate Spaces

The 2013 and 2015 World Social Forums in Tunis, Tunisia hosted thematic “climate spaces” for the first time. This article examines the extent to which these spaces are constitutive of a form of “transformative peacebuilding” aiming to transform social relations and eliminate the structural violence of the world capitalist economy. Both the theoretical and practical activities of civil society at the climate spaces are shown to be transformative but only to the extent that they contest broad processes of trasformismo which transcend differences and obscure the lived realities of governance and resistance. In this sense, civil society groups and movements at the climate spaces are shown to engage with global capitalism to potentially produce new global understanding and action. This generates new understandings of civil society as constitutive of directly resistant modes of social relation that push for radically different visions of climate justice and governance.     

Chinese Independent Documentary Films: Alternative Media,Public Spheres and the Emergence of the Citizen Activist

This article argues that contemporary independent documentary filmmaking in China has been used as a tool by Chinese citizens to intervene in the public sphere and to provoke social change. I therefore propose to look at the phenomenon of Chinese video activism under the umbrella of alternative media. In particular, I take into consideration the “rhizomatic” media approach, which focuses on the interaction of alternative media with authority, the market and civil society. The case studies I present consist of several documentary projects completed between 2004 and 2010 that opened up spaces of dialogue between filmmakers and local authority, mass media and civil society. The paper claims that documentary films have an impact on audiences, whose members are consequently motivated to engage in discussion and action. I argue that activist video-making in China is reshaping the identity of urban citizens: through filmmaking, urban citizens claim their right to access information and demonstrate their will to participate and intervene in social issues.     

中国城市与区域管治研究十年回顾与前瞻

在理解转型中国的城市与区域发展时,管治的理念提供了一个较为完备的理论框架。管治的研究与其他关于政府的研究不同,它强调政府与市民社会以及市场的互动关系,探讨政府角色的定位和市民社会的责任,构建和谐社会。本文综述十余年来内地以及港澳人文地理学者的主要研究成果,适当结合国内其他社会学科的有关研究,回顾管治研究的发展,追踪其前沿,以期对我国管治研究做一个较为全面的梳理。首先回顾自上个世纪九十年代末管治研究被引入我国人文地理学界以来,其兴起和进展两个阶段的主要研究成果与贡献以及存在问题。文章接着围绕尺度的概念,对当下各相关学科在管治领域的研究做了横向比较,指出人文地理学在管治研究中从尺度切入的优势。进一步地,文章介绍了管治研究的一个新探索——协作管治。文章指出,无论是城市还是区域尺度,地理学界对于"管治"的研究可以继续有所贡献。     

Workers,Unions and the State: Migrant Workers in China's Labour‐intensive Foreign Enterprises

Migrant workers present a new challenge both to China's increasingly diversified industrial relations and to its state–society relationship, especially vis‐à‐vis China's developmental state. Through an examination of the situation of migrant workers in the country's labour‐intensive foreign investment enterprises, this article argues that it is difficult to establish tripartite industrial relations in China and that pluralistic labour organizations will not easily develop into civil society type labour entities. China's developmental state is in an ambiguous process in redefining its role. Its ability to micro‐manage society is weakening substantially. However, its developmental character at the macro‐level largely remains strong, allowing it to continue to restrict progress towards civil society. The future will ultimately depend on a collective determination by key players — the workers, unions and the state — to find a compromise.     

Perspectives of civil society on governance of urban shrinkage: the cases of Heerlen (Netherlands) and Blaenau Gwent (Wales) compared

In light of the ongoing urban shrinkage debate, planners stressed the need for new planning concepts and strategies. In this respect, the relevance of involving civil society in governance of urban shrinkage has been emphasized. So far, however these issues have received limited attention. This paper aims to contribute to the debate by investigating (1) how actors in civil society experience urban shrinkage and (2) their perspectives on the governance of urban shrinkage. We study this in two shrinking medium-sized cities: Heerlen (the Netherlands) and Blaenau Gwent (Wales). To answer these research questions, we make use of the concept of social capital. We follow a comparative case study design, primarily basing the analysis on data from 52 in-depth interviews. In the case studies, specific patterns of social capital can be observed: strong place attachment, strong informal participation and weak trust of civil society in local governments. However, the experience of urban shrinkage and the reaction to shrinkage differs. We conclude that understanding shrinkage and addressing it are predominately context related. Explanations based on historical developments and welfare state provisions are offered. The paper ends with reflections on the implications of these findings for governance of urban shrinkage.     

Provincializing European responses to the refugee ‘crisis’ through a Hungarian lens

This paper engages with state, citizen, and civil society responses to refugees in Budapest and Hungary more widely in order to ‘provincialise’ European migration policy and politics. We introduce grounded, eastern ‘frontline’ realities and histories to complicate European claims to universality and hierarchies of “goodness”. Through ethnographic work that documents and analyses refugee reception after the so-called 2015 refugee crisis, we shed light on the diverse forms of existing crises affecting the EU. These conflicts involve contestations over i) who is deemed European (questions that have been asked both of migrants and East Europeans), and ii) the ‘Europeanisation’ project as it has entailed new governance and funding arrangements for the development of civil society organisations. These new governance modes have attempted to re-shape city-state-EU dynamics, purposefully eliding problematic nation-state responses to refugees. These have heightened opposition to EU power-creep from conservative governments. Through an empirically rich discussion of the Hungarian context in relation to Europe, this paper speaks to the broader spectrum of grounded and politicised populist responses that have challenged the EU's governance and future.     

Dual roles of semi‐civil society in Chinese democratisation

This paper addresses the question of how a civil society impacts on Chinese democratisation, by examining the nature and features of a Chinese semi‐civil society which could be both a potential for greater democratisation, and a conservative force used by the state to maintain a neo‐authoritarian regime. It challenges the common assumption of the mere positive influence of civil society on democracy in a growing literature on civil society. It also discusses the issue of how the state and the reformer faction within the party saw and will possibly see ‘civil society’ as the rule of arts and a new source of legitimacy in the rules of games for strengthening their power. This is probably more likely than the total collapse and disintegration posited by other writers.     

Governance at community level: Small towns in rural Victoria

The ‘blurring’ of the boundaries between and within public and private sectors has led to new styles of governing that affect the way that rural communities organise themselves. Some have called this a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’ where there has been a convergence of neo-liberal and communitarian ideologies to form the basis of a new relationship between the state, the market and civil society. We analyse the impact of these converging ideologies using a survey of development groups in 35 towns in rural Victoria and explore the types of community governance that have emerged as a response to changes in those towns that lost their local government authorities in the last decade of the twentieth century.     

Replacing a Father: civilian aspects of the Swedish military, 1600–1800

Early modern society was characterized by severe conflicts, but not all were caused by antagonistic relations between military (combatants) and civilian (noncombatants) persons. The civil–military relations were blurred. The separation and differentiation of civil and military functions in society was a process that occurred mainly in the 19th century. This process coincided with a conceptual change of the nature of gender: ‘civil’ became feminine and ‘military’ became masculine. Civil–military relations in early modern societies have recently been the focus of novel and productive research, and this article falls into that category. How civilian aspects of society were subordinated to military demands while still being a part of the military is examined in this article from a different angle; namely, to what extent the military was in charge of civilian aspects within its own organization. This is discussed from a gender perspective and scrutinized through the role of children in a series of issues connected with the creation of boundaries between civilian and military spheres in society. To put it simply, what did children do within the Swedish military in the 17th and 18th centuries? And who were the children? The answers are based on data from garrisons and the Swedish Ship’s Boys’ Corps, together with data from previous research on military history in Scandinavia. The article is part of a project that aims to make visible the role of children in the military prior to the era of child soldiers.     

“A World Class City of Your Own!”: Civic Governmentality in Chennai,India

Abstract: This paper utilizes a critical governmentality approach to theorize the processes through which urban elites become stakeholders in the “world‐class city”. Through a case study of public consultations for urban development plans in Chennai, India, the paper explores the technologies that produce urban actors who “participate” in urban governance. Key to these technologies is a discourse of participation that privileges and normalizes citizens as urban stakeholders. The paper contributes to current explorations into the technologies of inclusion that are central to an emerging civic governmentality in South Asia. In Chennai this civic governmentality engages various segments of civil society in processes of urban governance through the mechanism of public consultation. It is through these public consultations that elites come to exert influence over urban plans and consolidate a vision and desire for the world‐class city.     

Competing entanglements in the struggle to save the Amazon: The shifting terrain of transnational civil society

Transnational civil society has often been conceptualized as a third sector, buffered from the power politics of nation-states and global capital. The relative autonomy of this sector has been seen as key in empowering the voices of marginalized peoples and in advocating new counter-hegemonic agendas on the world stage. Recent research, however, has begun to explore power imbalances within the transnational civic sphere, and how different transnational NGOs' modes of articulation with political institutions and market actors inform those power dynamics. We suggest here that the concept of “entanglements,” recently introduced within political geography, can offer a useful spatial imagery in assessing the effects of these varied lines of influence. The article first traces the evolution of the Amazon Alliance, a transnational network of environmental and human rights NGOs and Amazonian indigenous federations. It then examines a countervailing nexus of governmental and corporate entanglements that have been drawing conservation NGOs away from indigenous eco-political engagement in recent years. To understand the waning salience of the eco-indigenous conservation agenda, we argue, requires analysis of the shifting terrain of civil society, and of the articulation of different NGOs with institutions beyond the frontiers of the third sector.     

近代城市贫民阶层及其救济探析——以天津为例

With the development of industry and commerce after Tianjin’s opening as a treaty port, the urban poor were in an unfavorable situation in controlling the social resources. Facing a large number of urban poor, the state represented by government officials of various levels and the civil society represented by local gentry-merchants have clearly recognized the widened gap and increased opposition in all social strata and communities while the disintegration was close to cross the bottom line. It will affect the social harmony and cause unrests. Therefore, under their advocacy and support, all kinds of relief and charity institutes come into being and play a positive role in balancing the social wealth, helping the lower class, improving the social justice and maintaining the stability of social order. Translated by Luo Hui from Shilin 史林 (Historical Review), 2006, (2): 77–84     

State politics,railroads, and Civil Rights in South Carolina, 1883–89

In 1889 the General Assembly of South Carolina repealed the state's Civil Rights Act (1870), following a protracted debate that had been prompted by the United States Supreme Court's decision in the Civil Rights Cases (1883). This article examines in detail the contours of the civil rights controversy in South Carolina and, in doing so, identifies a number of competing dynamics, among them outside corporate interests (in this case, railroads), local state interests, and regional loyalties. Taken together, these different factors demonstrate conclusively that civil rights in South Carolina during the 1880s was a contested space. They also shed important new light on the development of de jure segregation in the South and, in particular, the complex relationship between Jim Crow legislation and the social and economic issues related to railroad expansion.     

German liberalism and the militarisation of civil society, 1813–1848/49

From the beginning of nineteenth century German liberals endeavoured to reform the armies of different German states, subject them to constitutional authorities, open their ranks to members of civil society and turn military service into a civic obligation. After the Wars of Liberation and during the Vormärz years, the liberals struggle for democratically oriented armed forces was combined with their opposition to restorative regime and their hopes for the national unification of Germany and the formation of civil society. The liberals campaign, however, turned military service and military values into authentic manifestations of the ideal civil society. Military service was admired for the qualities it bestowed on those who bore arms and the values guiding its members as citizens. Paradoxically, military service became the founding institution of civil society. This process found further expression upon the renewed establishment of the civil militias (Bürgerwehren) during the Vormärz and the central role they played in the 1848 revolution. They were intended to introduce alternative forces into the army, but they ended up performing popular military and policing activities. Through this process, the Bildung ideal in the formation of civil society declined considerably, and the liberals actually contributed to the militarisation of society.     

Osama or the Georges: Shifting Threats and State Policy towards Civil Society in Uzbekistan

In examining the relationship between the War on Terror and restrictions on civil society, Uzbekistan is an important case, given its emergence as a key player in the operations in Afghanistan, its own terrorist threat, and its particularly stringent policy towards civil society. This article argues that while the ‘crackdown’ on civil society has followed a similar pattern to that of other countries where civil society is perceived as harbouring a threat, there has been a significant shift since the War on Terror began as to the perceived nature of the threat. At the time of 9/11, the government of Uzbekistan took Islamic terrorism to be the main threat; yet within the space of just over two years a new threat was perceived. Western support for civil society, a concession made to the US‐led coalition in return for support against Islamic terrorism, emerged as an even greater threat to the regime. It is this perceived threat that has primarily driven state policy towards civil society, raising important questions about how democracy promotion can be best taken forward in the post‐9/11 world.     

Bonhoeffer,Christ and Culture

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reflect theologically on recent research into the changing nature of civil society with a view to exploring the implications of these changes for the way churches and other faith communities might contribute to civil society in the future. The article looks at the mismatch between government rhetoric concerning the role of churches and faith communities in building up civil society, and the actual experience of faith communities becoming engaged in formal civil society activities such as regeneration and social cohesion which has often felt disempowering and awkward. The article then looks at the growth of non-institutional society (i.e. broad-based organizations and direct action campaigns) which tends to lie outside government control and raises the theological and strategic question as to whether more liquid and flexible forms of political participation have something to offer churches seeking to become more appropriately engaged in postmodern flows of society and the increasing marginalization within them.