Civil society has remained a key term for both academics and international development practitioners throughout the past two and a half decades. Since the collapse of the authoritarian regimes of Eastern Europe, in which civil society actors supposedly played an instrumental role, studies focusing on the USA and Europe, whether theoretical or empirical in nature, have emphasized the importance of civil society for the functioning of democracy (Edwards 2004, pp. 1â17; for examples see Cohen and Arato 1992; Klein 2002; Putnam 2000; Schmalz-Bruns 1994). Similarly, transformation theory and studies on newly democratized countries have investigated the role that civil society actors can play in the context of democratic transition and democratic consolidation (e.g. Croissant et al. 2000; Diamond 1999, pp. 218â260, esp. 233â250; Linz and Stepan 1996, esp. pp. 7f.).
Building on the predominantly positive assumptions about the democratic potential of civil society, which have prevailed in the academic and policy discourses since the fall of the Berlin Wall, international donor agencies have supported the growth of civil society as a means to promote democratization in the developing world (e.g. Banks et al. 2015, pp. 708f.; Carothers and Ottaway 2000, p. 6; Ottaway 2004; for examples see Ashton 2013; EC 2012; UNDP 2012; USAID 2014). According to Carothers and Ottaway (2000, p. 6), since the mid-1990s, âthe general notion that civil society development is critical to democratization has become a new mantra in both aid and diplomatic circlesâ. Specifically, many international donors have assumed that by laying the foundations for self-help and participatory development, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society groups empower vulnerable groups in society to stand up for their rights and advocate democratic reforms (e.g. Banks and Hulme 2012, esp. p.2, 5; Banks et al. 2015, pp. 708f.; Edwards 2004, p. 14; Carothers and Ottaway 2000). Since the mid-2000s, most major donor agencies have included âbottom-upâ or âdemand-sideâ approaches, which incorporate civil society promotion as a key component, in their good governance programmes (Carothers and de Gramont 2013, p. 136ff.). The trend of supporting civil society organizations active in developing countries has continued in recent years. 1
So far, however, the academic and the international aid communities have hardly paid attention to the question of whether there are any stringent conditions necessary for civil society actors to be able to promote democratization. Particularly, there is a tremendous lack of systematic research on whether civil society needs a specific kind of state in order to strengthen democracy. This research lacuna is highly problematic given that most developing countries are what the academic and policy discourses have termed âweakâ or âfragileâ states (e.g. Lambach and Bethke 2012; Milliken and Krause 2003; OECD 2011; Rotberg 2002, 2004; PBS Dialogue 2014; Schneckener 2006). What does civil society look like under such conditions? Without doubt there are strong ties between civil society and democracy. Is this true, however, for civil society and democratization processes in weak states as well? How much and what kind of political influence does civil society have in such settings? And are its actors really capable and willing to contribute to democracy in contexts where the independent and legal bureaucratic institutions of the state are weak?
Although both civil society and state weakness remain prominent subjects in the modern social sciences, the two strands of theory have so far remained largely unrelated. More specifically, as of yet, only a few academic works have explicitly dealt with the relationship between state weakness and civil society (e.g. Götze 2004; Englehardt 2011; Lorch 2006, 2008; Ottaway 2004; Shah 2008; van Leeuwen and Verkoren 2012; Verkoren and van Leeuwen 2014; WĂŒrfel 2006), and most of these studies are either general theoretical reflections on how existing definitions of civil society fail to capture the empirical reality in weak states, or single case studies focusing on individual empirical cases. While peace research studies sometimes also touch upon the role of civil society in weak or collapsed states, they usually remain confined to exploring how civil society actors can contribute to the forging and/or the implementation of peace agreements (for an overview see Paffenholz 2014). Consequently, these few existing works on civil society in contexts of state weakness fall short of offering a systematic analytical framework that could be used for analysing and comparing civil society development in and across weak states.
The research on governance in areas of limited statehood, which focuses on what happens within areas where the institutions of the central state are weak, convincingly shows that such spaces are often populated by a plethora of non-state actors, including NGOs and other civil society groups, which provide governance, and thus perform functions normally ascribed to the state (e.g. Beisheim et al. 2014, pp. 3ff.; Börzel 2012; Risse 2012, pp. 5ff.). Civil society-based strategies form part of various international state-building efforts (Dowst 2009, p. 1; Schneckener 2006, pp. 35f., 2011), and both academics and international development practitioners have reflected on how to best strengthen, and cooperate with, civil society in weak or collapsed states (van Leeuwen and Verkoren 2012, p. 81; for examples see Dowst 2009; Rombouts 2006; de Weijer and Kilnes 2012). However, they have largely failed to address the questions of what civil society groups look like, and whether they really contribute to democracy in such contexts. 2
The present book theoretically and empirically investigates how civil society constitutes itself in weak states, and how this affects its potential to contribute to democracy. Based on an in-depth comparison of the cases of Bangladesh and the Philippines, the study finds that while state weakness can be conducive to the emergence of civil society, national civil societies that operate in contexts of state weakness mirror the deficits of their respective states. Consequently, their role for their countriesâ democratization processes is highly ambiguous.
The book makes an important contribution to theory development, linking civil society theory and the existing research on weak states. By using a theoretically grounded comparative approach, it also differs from most of the previous works on civil society, which tend to be either overly theoretically oriented or based on single case studies whose findings are hard to generalize on a broader theoretical level. In addition, the study also generates new empirical findings on Bangladesh and the Philippines. In particular, it focuses on trends within the two countriesâ national civil societies that have not yet been discussed in the existing literature, most of which was written in the 1990s. Last but not least, the theoretical and empirical findings of this book also have important practical implications for international development cooperation and the promotion of civil society in weak states. Above all, they may provide some guidance regarding the question of how aid can best be provided to civil society organizations in countries where the institutions of the central state are weak.
The following introductory sub-chapters summarize the state of the literature on civil society and state weakness, identifying the gaps in both strands of literature that this book seeks to bridge. Sub-chapter 1.1 introduces the definition of civil society used in this study and locates it within the more empirically oriented literature on civil society. Sub-chapter 1.2 sketches the debate on state weakness, highlighting in particular the important, but often neglected, contributions of pre-9/11 scholarship on the topic, and outlines the concept of the weak state, which forms the basis of the studyâs comparative analytical framework. Sub-chapter 1.3 presents the studyâs research question and methodological approach, while Sub-chapter 1.4 shows how the cases of Bangladesh and the Philippines can be used as empirical starting points for an integration of civil society theories and theoretical approaches to state weakness. Section Sub-Chapter 1.5 outlines the structure of the book.
1.1 Civil Society in Normative Theory and Empirical Reality
While the notion of civil society has a lon...