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Transnational civil society networks have become increasingly important democratizing actors in global politics. Still, the exploration of democracy in such networks remains conceptually and methodologically challenging. Practice theory provides a framework to study democracy as routinized performances even in contexts of fluid boundaries, temporal relations and a diffuse constituency. The author attempts to understand how new forms of democratic practice emerge in the interaction between political actors and their structural environments.

Observation at rural grassroots in Special Province of Yogyakarta reveals that there is a strong foundation for civil society. Self governing capacity has been well demonstrated in many forms within the daily live of the community: neigbourhood associations, policy advocacy and so on. The way they organise them mostly by revitalised the disfunctional organisation during the New Order government. Yet, more external fascilitation and support is needed still.

This paper explores the role of women's organizations in preventing family-based radicalism. The research was conducted on two civil society women activist groups, namely Fatayat NU and Family Welfare Empowerment (PKK), who had concerns about empowering women through strengthening family resilience. Qualitative data was collected through interviews and focus group discussions. The results showed that the role of these activists in preventing radicalism can be categorized into two categories. Prevention of radicalism for families who have not been exposed to radicalism is done by strengthening family resilience through economic, health, education, socio-religious activities, and an increased understanding of radicalism, i.e. by detecting and avoiding radical ideologies. For high-risk families or those who have been exposed to radicalism, these civil society organizations provide intensive assistance through social based strengthening and trauma healing. Assistance to children of former terrorists is carried out by these organizations to ensure the fulfillment of children's rights as guaranteed by law. These organizations also collaborate with the government and NGOs to increase effectiveness in preventing family-based radicalism. The paper concludes that the role of women, families and communities is strategic in creating a harmonious family atmosphere and preventing family members from being exposed to radicalism.

Crossing boundaries : analyzing civil society and transnational influences -- Introducing the protagonists : Russian NGOs and foreign donors -- A tale of two sectors : the mixed success of foreign assistance across issue areas -- Regional realities : the influence of local political environments on foreign assistance outcomes -- Implications for theory and practice

The author offers a critical reading of the federal government's responses to Hurricane Katrina and the hurricane's effects on the city of New Orleans. A collapse of civil society was observed in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. A plan for the democratic reconstruction of the city is outlined.

The material & symbolic meanings of knowledge, resource, & conceptual transfers from Western to Eastern Europe are discussed in a case study analysis of a Danish-funded civil society foundation's attempts to assist Albanian nongovernmental organizations. The privatization & democratization efforts currently pursued in Eastern Europe are largely the result of Western intervention. Through foreign aid programs, government support, & international development agencies, programs, symbols, & resources are transferred from West to East. The efforts to export Danish civil society involve not only the transfer of resources, but also conceptual models & representations. Power brokers in both regions have the ability to alter these representations, & Western models of civil society are naturally transformed in new social, cultural, & political contexts. Although this inequal relationship can & has been exploited by both East & West, it is concluded that Danish projects have helped in the creation of foundations for a productive & distinctly Albanian form of civil society. T. Sevier

"How does architecture make its appearance in civil society? Constitutional Modernism pursues this challenging question by exploring architecture, planning, and law as cultural forces. Analyzing the complex entanglements between these disciplines in the Cuban Republic, Timothy Hyde reveals how architects joined with other professionals and intellectuals in efforts to establish a stable civil society, from the promulgation of a new Cuban Constitution in 1940 up until the Cuban Revolution.By arguing that constitutionalism was elaborated through architectural principles and practices as well as legal ones, Hyde offers a new view of architectural modernism as a political and social instrument. He contends that constitutionalism produced a decisive confluence of law and architecture, a means for planning the future of Cuba. The importance of architecture in this process is laid bare by Hyde's thorough scrutiny of a variety of textual, graphical, and physical artifacts. He examines constitutional articles, exhibitions, interviews, master plans, monuments, and other primary materials as acts of design.Read from the perspective of architectural history, Constitutional Modernism demonstrates how the modernist concepts that developed as an international discourse before the Second World War evolved through interactions with other disciplines into a civil urbanism in Cuba. And read from the perspective of Cuban history, the book explains how not only material products such as buildings and monuments but also the immaterial methods of architecture as a cultural practice produced ideas that had consequential effects on the political circumstances of the nation. "--

This article offers an analysis of precisely how civil society and its relation to democracy were conceptualised by its East European and South American proponents in their pre-democratic contexts, through an examination of declarations, newspaper articles, samizdat essays, diaries, letters from prison, academic articles and prize acceptance speeches written at the time. The analysis of these source materials is organised under three main themes: the first concerns activists' understanding of the nature of the regime, its aims and its relation to society; the second relates to the features of the emergent civil society the writers of these documents desired, observed, and helped to create; and the final section discusses their strategies and aspirations in relation to "democratisation". On the basis of an analysis of commonalities in ideas across these two very different regional and ideological contexts, hypotheses are formulated as building blocks for a political theory of civil society under authoritarian rule, which may apply in yet other, contemporary contexts. Adapted from the source document.

How does hiring of policy professionals, to do the policy work of civil society organizations, impact the organizations that hire them? Policy professionals constitute a growing group of actors who populate many interest groups, working with advocacy and influencing public policy. As a group they comprise various types of professionals, displaying different backgrounds, identities and motivations. By analyzing individual policy professionals, asking questions about their identity and motivation to work with advocacy, and then through ethnographical observations following their work, this article contributes to the understanding of how policy professionals' backgrounds and professional identities are connected to organizational strategies and the process of professionalization. In so doing, it sheds new light on the dynamics of policy production and what professionalization of politics looks like in civil society. The article proposes a categorization of policy professionals' role orientations in civil society as policy scholars, policy lobbyists, policy communicators and policy activists. This conceptualization is of analytical value, because the balance between these categories affects dynamics within organizations and the work they do in relation to advocacy and policy, in tandem with their legitimacy.

Despite having rapid economic development, the ASEAN region is not completely stable and p eaceful. Conflicts have been going on since long before the ASEAN is established. They happen in Myanmar, Thailand, and Philippines. A smaller scale of conflict also takes place in Indonesia. The view that security comes first before the investment has made it difficult to achieve peace and stability based on economic instruments. In this article, the writer proposes a view that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can be utilized as an important instrument in boosting peace and stability provided that the civil society sustains it. Two case studies are presented to show the relationship between FDI, civil society, and peace development in the conflict area, Myanmar and Philippines. It is recommended that civil society actively makes efforts to encourage FDI to come to the conflict are and establish capital -intensive industries, especially in Rakhine and Mindanao.

Does civic engagement lead to democratic values such as trust & tolerance? This is the claim of the literature on social capital. Using surveys of the public & organizational activists the authors conducted in Romania & Moldova in 2001 with the support of the Starr Foundation, they investigate these linkages. In both countries, they find low levels of civic engagement, trust, & tolerance for the mass public. They also find little support for the argument that participation leads to greater trust & tolerance among the mass public. However, they find considerably higher levels of trust, tolerance, & engagement among organizational activists & suggest that this elite may help transfer democratic values to the larger population. It is disconcerting that such activists constitute minuscule proportions of the population in both countries. 7 Tables. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2004.]