BUSINESS-GOVERNMENT-SOCIETY

Business-Government-Society

Business-Government-Society

Traditionally civil society is conceptualised as a necessary condition of democracy. Indeed, some arguments come close to seeing civil society and citizenship as the sole defining condition of democracy. The proposition to be argued here is that the problem is, in fact, much more complex and that civil society is only one component of democracy, though a vital one. (George 2009)

In brief, the argument to be put forward here is that democracy is composed of three key, interdependent elements - civil society, the government and ethnicity. These three are in a continuous, interactive relationship. They have different functions and roles, create different, at times overlapping, at times contradictory attitudes and aspirations and through their continuous interaction, all three are reshaped and reformulated dynamically. Hence civil society is not a static entity, a government of affairs that has been reached and is then established for good, but is fluid, shifting, conflictual, responsive to changes in politics and vulnerable to hostile pressures.

To start with, there should be a brief look at the much-discussed relationship of government and civil society. In some analyses, this relationship is depicted as a zero-sum game, so that the stronger the government, it is suggested, the weaker civil society is. Indeed, in some libertarian arguments, the government seeks actively to oppress civil society. This assessment is too restrictive and will not be adopted here. Rather, given the emphasis on the reciprocal relationship between government and civil society, it is the mutual impact of either that is deemed significant. In effect, it is hard to conceive of civil society functioning successfully actually without the government. The citizen, the agent and subject of politics, is simultaneously constrained by the government and protected by it. The government plays an important role in providing the integrative framework within which civil society operates and the latter cannot function properly without that. (Eugen 2010)

Historically, modern citizenship - the package of legal, political, social, cultural and economic rights and duties that regulate the relationship between rulers and ruled - is the outcome of the rationalising activity of the rising modern government, accelerating from the 17th century onwards. (McNeill 2009) This activity sought to extend and to intensify the power of the government over the population under its rule. This was a key moment. The rise of the modern, rationalising, interventionist government, with a much increased capacity to implement its will, meant that a whole variety of previously diverse practices within a given territory, but under the same ruler, were coming under pressure to be made more coherent, unified, more easily run by the ruler. Administrative, coercive and extractive, ie. taxation, procedures were homogenised in the name of greater efficiency. Government capacity was considerably improved. (Eugen 2010)

A good deal of the theoretical analysis emphasises the civic contract as the key instrument for regulating the new relationship between rulers and ruled. But the civic contract is not only a metaphor, but does not provide answers for the dilemmas sketched ...