Suchergebnisse

A review essay on books by (1) Ariel C. Armony, The Dubious Link: Civic Engagement and Democratization (Stanford, CA: Stanford U Press, 2004); (2) Carlos Forment, Democracy in Latin America: Civic Selfhood and Public Life in Mexico and Peru, 1760-1900 (Chicago: U Chicago Press, 2003); & (3) Marc Morje Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (New York: Cambridge U Press, 2003). For much of the past two decades, students of democracy have operated under the spell of civil society. A new & extensive body of literature, however, suggests the limits of this evocative concept in explaining the making & maintenance of democratic regimes. Despite its recent popularity, civil society remains mired in conceptual confusion regarding what the term is meant to represent. More important, the theoretical agenda underpinning the civil society revival lacks much of a foundation in real-life politics. A central problem is the tendency to treat civil society's effects on politics in isolation from the political context. Adapted from the source document.

Comments on Hartmut Rosa's (2003) analysis of the "social acceleration" that characterizes modern Western (capitalist) society & its ethical & political consequences. Focus is on the transition from viewing the present as the central dimension of social action to conceiving of it as "mere instantaneity," a transition linked to David Harvey's (1989) ideas on time-space compression & Hermann Lubbe's (in Backhaus, K., & Bonus, H. [Eds] 1998) notion of Gegenwartsschrumpfung (the contraction of the present). The relationship between Harvey's idea that the modern world is shrinking due to human action, which "annihilates space through time," & Carlos Castoriadis's (1987) conception of the "capitalist imaginary" is discussed. Ways that the destructuration of temporal experience accompanying the limitless expansion of speed in the acceleration society can be resisted are explored, highlighting three key points: (1) the quotidian dimension of time, (2) the relation between inner & outer (social) time, & (3) the notion of responsibility. K. Hyatt Stewart

This title brings together competing theories of civil society with critical studies of the role of civil society in diverse situations and the way in which it has been promoted as the key to democratization. The combination of contemporary theory and practical applications provides valuable reading for students of civil society and contemporary social and political change, and its policy implications for Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.