Civil Society and Citizenship

Now we turn to more of the research I began about the civil society sector! I know it took awhile, but remember at first I wanted to focus on the women’s NGOs, so this would have been background to a women’s rights focus. That or I probably didn’t discover the book until later. I find it best to start off with a definition of civil society, for I find it is hard to explain to those who are not sure what it is already. I often find myself relying on examples alone. “You know The Red Cross? Amnesty International? National Organization of Women? THOSE are NGOs.” In comes Lester Salamon with the save: “they are all organizations that operate outside the state apparatus, that do not distribute profits, and that citizens are free to join or not join to pursue common purposes” (Salamon et al, xvii). In addition there are 5 characteristics that are required of civil society organizations (Salamon et al, 3-4):

1. organizations: they have an institutional presence and structure
2. private: they are institutions separate from the state.
3. non-profit distributing: they do not return profits to their managers or to a set of owners
4. self governing:  they are fundamentally in control of their own affairs
5. voluntary: membership in them is not legally required and they attract some level of voluntary contribution of time or money

The importance of the civil society sector has began to be seen as “strategically important participants in this search for a ‘middle way’ between sole reliance on the market and sole reliance on the state that now seems to be increasingly underway” (Salomon et al, 5). There is a general acceptance that the government can not serve all of the needs of its citizens, thus the civil society sector is beginning to bridge that gap between public and private services. The civil society sector is also considered a critical part of a democratic society.

Part of being part of a member of a democratic society is the right of citizenship. Citizenship can define “the limits of state power and where a civil society or the private sphere of free individuals begin” (Yuval-Davis & Werbner, 2). In fact, democratic citizenship maintains the right to be different. Yet, while allowing different parties to emerge, and being a part of the nation, each person has a different view of citizenship because citizenship encapsulates specific, historically inflected, cultural and social assumptions about similarity and difference” (Yuval-Davis & Werber, 3). Further, Yuval-Davis and Werber argue that citizenship is at the intersection of the state, civil society and an individual intersect.

But for me? The best quote I have found is this: Unlike nationalism, which grounds itself in past myths of common origin or culture, citizenship raises its eyes towards the future to common destinies” (Yuval-Davis & Werber, 8).

Nira Yuval-Davis & Pnina Werbner, “Women & the New Discourse of Citizenship,” in Women, Citizen & Difference, 1-38, ed by Nira Yuval-Davis and Prina Werber. London: Zed Books, 1999.

global Civil Society Dimensions of the Non-Profit sector, ed Lester Slamon, Helmut Anheier, Regina List, Stefan Toepler, S. Wojciech Sokolowski and Associates. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, 1999.

“Preface”

“Civil Society in Comparitive Perspective” 3-39