 Who needs civil society?Chris Allen Review of African Political Economy, 1997, vol. 24, issue 73, 329-337 Abstract: ‘Civil society’ has become a popular concept in both the analysis of the social bases of recent political change in Africa, and in external policy support for processes of liberal democratic political reform. In the latter case, civil society, as represented by a set of (largely urban) formal organisations and especially by NGOs with external links, is portrayed as the driving force behind and guarantee of democratisation and the containment of the state. Conceptually, however, ‘civil society’ proves to be diffuse, hard to define, empirically imprecise, and ideologically laden. Analytically it is vacuous, and concepts such as class or gender contribute far more to understanding recent political change than can ‘civil society’. Its popularity and continued employment rest on its ideological underpinning, notably on claims that civil society is necessarily distinct from the state, in opposition to the state, and the source of (liberal) democratic values and pressures. It is thus the proponents of liberal democratic reform, notably those external to African polities, that ‘need’ civil society. Date: 1997 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revape:v:24:y:1997:i:73:p:329-337 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/03056249708704266 Access Statistics for this article Review of African Political Economy is currently edited by Graham Harrison, Branwen Gruffydd Jones, Claire Mercer, Nicolas Pons-Vignon, Aurelia Segatti and Ray Bush More articles in Review of African Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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