One of the main reasons that people are interested in the concept of civil society in contemporary political philosophy is that it seems to offer a way forward in the dispute between “liberals” and “communitarians”. That is a dispute within liberalism between a view of liberalism that sees it as structured around principles of right, or of neutrality, and a different view that emphasises the good. We will try and assess the claim that invoking civil society will move this debate forward. (I would add that the paper by Charles Taylor in the reading list this week is the best single paper by anyone on this topic). This topic forms a bridge between this course and PL525 and the module that precedes it, PL535: Liberals and Communitarians. But if you have not completed PL535 this topic will be treated in a self-sufficient way.

Reading

(a) Cohen and Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory, ‘Introduction’, pp. 8-10.
(b) Charles Taylor, ‘Invoking Civil Society’.
(c) Michael Walzer, ‘The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism’
(d) ‘The Civil Society Argument’, Michael Walzer
(e) ‘Classic Liberalism and Civil Society: Definitions, History and Relations’, Tom G. Palmer.

Answer the following questions in preparation for your seminar:

(1) What is the central point of dispute between liberals and communitarians?

(2) How might the invocation of civil society resolve some of the issues between liberals and communitarians?

(3) Taylor distinguishes a concept of civil society taken from Locke and one taken from Montesquieu. What are the key features of the “L-stream” concept and the “M-stream” concept and which is more defensible?

(4) How might a liberal republican draw on the concept of civil society?

One aspect of the civil society argument is the claim that this “setting of settings” as Walzer calls it, is where one learns to be a good citizen. It is, importantly, a place for developing mutual trust in the course of co-operative enterprises outside the intimate or domestic sphere, but not in a political body per se. This week we will examine the nature of trust.

Reading

(a) ‘Trust as Noncognitive Security about Motives’, Lawrence C. Becker.
(b) ‘Trustworthiness’, Russell Hardin
(c) ‘Street Level Epistemology and Democratic Participation' Russell Hardin
(d) Excerpt from Diego Gambetta and Heather Hamill Streetwise: How Taxi Drivers Establish Customers' Trustworthiness.

Seminar Questions

Answer the following questions in preparation for your seminar:

(1) What is the role, in explaining social relations, of impersonal trust?
(2) Is trust a compensatory mechanism for a lack of knowledge/grasp of complexity about the behaviour of others? Or is it an irreducibly ethical notion?
(3) What is the connection between trust and good citizenship?
(4) Does the true theory of street level trust undermine the idea of democratic participation?

Schumpeter controversially argued, in his elite theory of democracy, that democracy was analogous to a marketplace. Political elites compete for votes, viewed as a “purchase price” of particular packages of interests that satisfy different interest groups in society. Between elections, citizen participation in the political process was not particularly desirable. Representative theorists of democracy argue that, on the contrary, the democratic process requires involvement on the part of citizens and such involvement can be mediated via the institutions of civil society. Radically participatory democrats require each citizen to be constantly involve in political participation; on an indirect or "mediated" model a compromise between the elite theory and radically participatory theory is that active citizens involve themselves in organisations in civil society that help to put new interests on the political agenda.

Reading

(a) ‘Another Theory of Democracy’, excerpt from Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
(b) ‘Elite-Mass Linkages’, Robert D. Putnam.
(c) Cohen and Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory, chapter 5.

Seminar Questions

Answer the following questions in preparation for your seminar:

(1) Is citizen involvement in the democratic process necessarily a good thing?
(2)How can a representative theory of democracy call for democratic participation in a mass society?
(3) Are political elites either necessary or desirable?
(4) How can a flourishing civil society advance the democratic potential of a society?

The concept of civil society certainly came to prominence as a diagnostic response, the on the part of political philosophers, to the “Velvet Revolution” in Eastern Europe. Soviet control and the ruling elites that it sponsored and supported disappeared very rapidly, leading some political theorists to conclude that this was an instance of a peaceful revolution “from below” where the structures of civil society had survived totalitarianism. Those structures could now be built upon in the transition to democracy of these newly liberated countries. (Much of this optimism was later derailed by the ethnic strife caused by resurgent nationalism in Eastern Europe). This week we will assess the usefulness of the category of civil society as a diagnosis of these transitions to democracy but also as extended to other geographical regions and indeed, to the idea of a “world” civil society. How useful, as an explanatory category, is civil society in explaining successful transitions to democratic rule and in explaining failures of such transitions?

Reading

(a) Wlodzimierz Wesolowski, ‘The Nature of Social Ties’, in John Hall (ed.) Civil Society.
(b) Philip Oxhorn, ‘From Controlled Exclusion to Coerced Marginalization: The Struggle for Civil Society in Latin America’ in John Hall (ed.) Civil Society.
(c) Jack Goody, ‘Civil Society in Extra-European Perspective’, in Kaviraj and Khilnani, (eds.) Civil Society: History and Possibilities.
(d) Michael Walzer, ‘Editor’s Introduction’ in Toward a Global Civil Society (Berghahn Books 1995)

Seminar Questions

Answer the following questions in preparation for your seminar:

(1) Are the theorists of democratization in connection with Polish Solidarity and in connection with democratization in other parts of the world using the same concept? Or are they making it ambiguous?
(2) Can a “civil society argument” be reconstructed from these historical examples? What are its premises?
(3) Does the idea of a global civil society make any sense?

The in-class assignment will be held in the seminar slots in week six, that is on Thursday February 26th, in your usual seminar room. Students are expected to prepare in advance for the in-class assignment. The assignment will consist of a written answer to one of the questions here i.e. the same list of questions as for the essays. You may not do both your essay and your written assignment on the same topic. The assignment lasts for 50 minutes.

Week Seven: Civil Society, “New Social Movements” and Neo-Marxism

A current point of controversy in political philosophy is whether or not the emphasis on civil society is compatible with the views of another group of philosophers who talk about association and the revival of civic virtue: republicans. Charles Taylor represents one form of republicanism, but there are alternative forms and the question of whether they can acknowledge the role of civil society remains open. Seligman has strongly argued the negative case: Thomas and Dagger represent different kinds of republican response:

Reading

The reading this week is:

(a) Adam Seligman, ‘Animadversions Upon Civil Society and Civic Virtue in the Last Decade of the Twentieth Century’, in , in John A. Hall, (ed.) Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison.
(b) Alan Thomas ‘Liberal Republicanism and Civil Society’ (photocopy).
(c) Richard Dagger, Civic Virtues, (Oxford U.P. 1997) chapters 11 and 12.
(d) ‘Civil Society and Government: A Liberal-Egalitarian Perspective’, Will Kymlicka.

Seminar Questions
 
Think about the following questions in preparation for the seminar:

(1) Seligman argues that republicanism and civil society are incompatible. What are his reasons for this conclusion?
(2) What are the different major kinds of republicanism, and are they equally incompatible with the argument for civil society?
(3) Why do both republicans and civil society theorists call for greater citizen engagement – is this a co-incidence?

The topic of citizenship has been indirectly relevant to much that we have discussed so far: liberals and communitarians both want to create citizens of a certain (different) kind. Good citizens seem to be citizens who impersonally trust. Good citizens seem to be active participants in a democratic culture that assures accountability in a democratic process. Good citizens raise the level of social captial with benefits for all. But how can a liberal society make people good citizens? Is this a violation of state neutrality? And what do we mean by a good citizen - is this a matter of legal status or an ethical ideal?

The critique of citizenship by the New Right leads to the issue of whether people should receive a basic income without regard to their level of responsibility. Take a look at the provocative paper by Philippe van Parijs - recent debate refers to the fact that people in Australia sign up for unemployment benefit and then go surfing! (Although the historical precedent that van Parijs discusses is of earlier origin - the sixties in Hawaii!)

Reading

The main item of reading this week is - happily- a synoptic survey paper. Take a look at it and if you want to follow up the sources it refers to, use Kymlicka and Norman's bibliography.

Kymlicka and Norman, 'Return of the Citizen'

Seminar Questions

1 Explain the distinction between citizenship as legal status (membership) and citizenship as an ethical ideal. (p. 353)

2 Section I describes the seminal work of T H Marshall. Why have the social rights central to Marshall's account be characterised as "passive". Are they passive? (pp. 353 - 355)

3 Describe the "New Right" critique of social rights. Do they merely serve to turn a social underclass into passive clients of the welfare state? (pp. 355 - 357)

4 Do you believe that most people would choose to work rather than stay on benefits because they would then have the opportunity to earn more for themselves than they otherwise could?

5 Will an appeal to civic virtue solve these problems or irresponsibility? (pp. 360 - 362)

6 Does an appeal to associational life/civil society help to meet the "New Right" critique? (pp. 363-369)

7 Do multicultural societies need a notion of "differentiated citizenship" or would this make societies less, not more, liberal? p. 369 - 375

Van Parijs, 'Why Surfers Should be Fed'

1 Is leisure time a good, such that if one takes it from the community one has to pay for it?

2 Should a person receive a guaranteed basic minimal income with no commitment from him or her to work?

Thus far on this course we have largely focused on those who offer an optimistic assessment of the concept of civil society and its practical and explanatory usefulness. But the concept and its uses certainly have their critics. In the last seminar we will look about a practical scepticism about civil society that claims that associational life is in terminal decline and a theoretical scepticism that questions the usefulness of such a vague concept.

Reading

The reading this week is from:

(1) Robert D Putnam, Bowling Alone, Touchstone Books.

(2) Krishnan Kumar, ‘Civil Society: An Inquiry Into the Usefulness of a Historical Term’, British Journal of Sociology vol 44 no 3 (September 1993).

(3) Karl Marx, 'On the Jewish Question', on-line here.

Seminar Questions

Consider the following questions before your seminar:

(1) Examine the factors responsible for the decline of associational life, as identified in Putnam's synopsis of his conclusions.

(2) Do you think that the practical measures that Putnam envisages for increasing social capital can be effective?

(3) Kumar discusses the contemporary relevance of the concept. Put the case made by both sides in your own terms – and then conclude which side you agree with!

(4) Was Marx right to argue that the idea of civil society is integrally bound up with classical political economy, which legitimises capitalist social relations as an ethical/political ideal?

Reading:

Excerpts from Cass Sunstein, Republic.com

Friedland, A 'Electronic Democracy and the New Citizenship', (offprint)

James S Fishkin, 'Virtual Democratic Possibilities: Prospects for Internet Democracy'. (online)

Seminar Questions

Consider the following questions before your seminar:

(1) Does the internet expand or restrict associational life by narrowing its range?

(2) Do people seek out only those with whom they share already existing common interests online?

(3) Is there a technological solution to the problems of direct democratic representation?

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