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The article presents results of a study of the structure of the civil society in Croatia, analyzed by means of the following indicators: the number of the organizations of the civil society; membership in these organizations; the range of these organizations; the composition of the civil society; & the resources of the civil society. In the 1990s in Croatia, the number of the civil society organizations increased greatly. They have relatively small memberships; also, in the 1990s, the active memberships shrank. Civil society organizations can be found primarily in big cities. Insufficient networking & a certain dose of political divisions of these organizations diminish their developmental potential. Foreign organizations & their financial support played a major part in profiling the structure of the civil society. The relatively modest human resources reduce the partnership position of these organizations. The structure of these organizations can be compared to other transitional countries. The war & the humanitarian crisis particularly affected the profiling of the structure of the civil society in Croatia. 2 Tables, 46 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article is a part of an extensive research project called the "CIVICUS index of Croatia's civic society." The sample included the contents from six dailies. The civic society is most often mentioned in the context of news & brief reports. The analyzed dailies cover the activities of the civic society mostly if they are linked to the events they organize. The organizations of the civic society are predominantly shown in positive light. Negative coverage is almost marginal. Charity events are covered by these dailies, but the coverage is more extensive if the events are linked with marketing. The role of the dailies in promoting the civic society's organizations as the key actors in the anticorruption campaign & in raising the awareness of family violence is particularly significant. The value foundation of the reported information may be a food for thought & inspire action. The civic society in Croatia has been trying to keep the state accountable & helping the public to gain a more revealing insight into the major issues & questions. Tables, Graphs, References. Adapted from the source document.

The logic of civil religion consists of minimizing community in order to maximize pluralism. Every modern society needs pluralism on the one hand, and securing of its foundations on the other. Still, civil religion may raise suspicion with regard to use of religion for political purposes. And instrumentalization is contradictory to the character of religion, although the latter always has political consequences as well. Civil religion serves politics with the aim of educating citizens. Perhaps, however, it can also be perceived as preparation of totalitarian beliefs and liturgies, such as are known to us from the first half of the 20th century. Civil religion can go hand in hand with excessive nationalism, proselytism, and Satanization of enemies. Such undesirable consequences of civil religion are discussed in this article on the basis of examples from the time of the French Revolution. The Revolution was largely marked by civil religion, the former even legitimized the latter. Four examples from the history of the French Revolution are analyzed: human rights as civil religion; cult of reason and of the supreme being; worship of the Revolution's "martyr" Jean-Paul Marat, and, finally, Satanization of enemies. Following his expose, the author confronts these questions: Is the confusing element of civil religion the fact that it wants to utilize religion per se for political purposes? What is it that protects civil religion from degenerating into nationalism and proselytism? Or else civil religion can be both: the basis of a tolerant pluralist democracy as well as the preparatory stage of totalitarianism? Adapted from the source document.

The author looks into the origin & the evolution of the notion of civil society & outlines the contemporary debates on its meaning & democratic potential, as well as its democratic deficits. The concept of civil society (originally devised by Aristotle & used for centuries in political philosophy), was revived in the 1980s, first in the East-European movements against the Stalinist state socialism, & later in the new social movements in the West & in social sciences in general. Today's understanding of this term is the result of the branching out of the classical term: while originally it denoted an association of citizens as a political community, Montesquieu & Hegel came up with the difference between the civil society & the state as a political community. Later, a series of modern authors, in line with Gramsci, additionally differentiated between the civil & the market societies. The case in point is Jurgen Habermas who defines civil society as a system of spontaneously generated non-state & nonprofit associations connected via the venues of public communication & whose goal is not to win the firsthand political power. Another understanding of civil society has resulted from a long cooperation of the UN & its specialized institutions with the nongovernmental organizations that came to the fore at the major thematic UN-sponsored conferences in the l990s. The author criticizes the idealized picture of civil society as a form of the organization & the democracy-promoting communication of citizens. A developed civil society is undoubtedly important for democracy, but this also requires the appropriate checking mechanisms. The potential deficits of the civil society are reform blockade, the risk of the loss of civilness in populist movements & the social asymmetry of civil activism. Finally, the author looks into a variety of proposals that see in the European civil society the means of the democratization of the European Union. 12 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article is a part of an extensive research project called the "CIVICUS index of Croatia's civic society." The sample included the contents from six dailies. The civic society is most often mentioned in the context of news & brief reports. The analyzed dailies cover the activities of the civic society mostly if they are linked to the events they organize. The organizations of the civic society are predominantly shown in positive light. Negative coverage is almost marginal. Charity events are covered by these dailies, but the coverage is more extensive if the events are linked with marketing. The role of the dailies in promoting the civic society's organizations as the key actors in the anticorruption campaign & in raising the awareness of family violence is particularly significant. The value foundation of the reported information may be a food for thought & inspire action. The civic society in Croatia has been trying to keep the state accountable & helping the public to gain a more revealing insight into the major issues & questions. Tables, Graphs, References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper deals with the role of the organizations of civil society in the restructuring of welfare states. The organizations of civil society have a recognizable role in all social regimes. Their development is a product of specific historical circumstances linked to ideological, political, social, cultural, & religious traditions. These traditions leave their trace on the legal framework of the activities, the role, & the scope of the civil society sector. The paper offers accounts of the theories of the development of civil society & cautions as to their applicability to the Croatian situation. In the late 1990s, the development of civil society in developed countries regarding their social policies was faced with a number of challenges & a variety of critical trends were identified. In light of the results of recent research, the paper looks into the usefulness of the above-mentioned theories for the development of civil society in Croatia, as well as its role in the restructuring of the welfare state. The decentralization of the welfare state as the dominant trend cannot count on the capacities of the local government units. The social programs are on the margin of local interests. The organizations of civil society in the social sphere have respectable resources only in a handful of major cities. The establishment of social councils as the new networks that would contribute to the linkage between the major partakers & to the build-up of the social capital at the local level, is one of the viable developments conducive to a feasible reform. Research results indicate a strengthening of the civil society organizations. Inspired by social entrepreneurship & their partnership with other participants, they can mobilize new resources & fortify the welfare state from below. 37 References. Adapted from the source document.

Ages ago, Plato understood justice as the purport & the essential purpose of the very existence of the state. Though Plato distinguishes between the political justice of the state & the personal justice of the individual soul, it was Aristotle who in his practical philosophy developed, apart from the general justice, an appropriate understanding of the special or particular justice & its significance for social progress. The first part of this paper deals with the different types of justice, & the second with civil society. In order to understand the contemporary theories of political justice & the roles of civil society in its realization, the author looks into the history of the European political thought & "civil society," since "civic" or "civil society" ("societas civilis"), was originally a political society. In modernity, Hegel began differentiating between the state as a political community & the "civil society" as a nonpolitical society; his intention was not to separate but to integrate them by means of the public scrutiny & the citizens' governance, Thus Hegel linked Locke's & Montesquieu's opposing definitions of the relationship between the civil society & the state. This is all the more important since Hegel's philosophy is often misinterpreted as the state totalitarianism since we overlook the dangers coming, especially today, both from the civil society reduced to economy & the absolute state, the dangers that Hegel, with his concept of customariness, detected & avoided. 11 References. Adapted from the source document.

The article deals with the concept of civil society in relation to its theoretical legacy & also with its meaning in the context of the social reality of developed democracies &, in particular, transitional societies. The author looks into the fundamental features of the societies of developed democracies where defining the further development of civil society & its adjustment to new social circumstances is under way, primarily due to the preservation & strengthening of the civic initiative & the expansion of the space for civic & political participation. For transitional societies, democracy is a coveted goal. The author's opinion is that the establishment of an autonomous civil society & the application of its elementary mechanisms is the essential & irreplaceable condition of its realization. He looks into the prospects for the democratization of the public & the political space of transitional societies by means of the application of social & political patterns of civil society, especially in relation to all the differences & particularities of these societies that serve as inhibiting factors (social & political legacy, authoritarian aberrations). Despite a plethora of obstacles, the prospects for an autochthonous structuring of the civil society within the existing social conditions, based on the same universal values of the civil society in developed democracies, are much bigger than those for the implementation of the readymade solutions from developed democracies. 31 References. Adapted from the source document.

The article opens with an introduction to the key aspects of the globalization debates and their controversies, while it later deals with the crisis of the national model of citizenship. Since the 1990's the debate is between the advocates of two conflicting theses. According to the first camp of authors, citizenship has proven resistant to the globalization changes in the economic, political and cultural sphere, and even capable of revival. On the other side, it has been argued that the identity of a person, as a member of a national community, was gradually separated from its human and civil rights. That led to the establishment of a 'postnational model of membership' -- individual and group rights independent of citizenship. According to the second camp, the nation state was fundamentally transformed and it has become an instrument for implementation of the international conventions and norms of human rights understood as personal instead of citizenship rights. There are also attempts to reconcile the two standpoints. These authors recognize the challenges to the conventional national mode of citizenship, but argue that the processes of citizenship transformation are primarily an internal issue for the liberal democracies. Some authors try to step out of the narrow and exclusive conceptual frameworks of the nation state and postnational membership, attempting to explain the conflicting transformation processes of citizenship rights. There are also proposals for new concepts of citizenship -- a multicultural and a supranational, for example -- as a response to the challenges of globalization and international migration. Finally, postmodern writers talk about postmodern or a cosmopolitan citizenship that is not immediately tied to the nation-state. Adapted from the source document.

The article opens with an introduction to the key aspects of the globalization debates and their controversies, while it later deals with the crisis of the national model of citizenship. Since the 1990's the debate is between the advocates of two conflicting theses. According to the first camp of authors, citizenship has proven resistant to the globalization changes in the economic, political and cultural sphere, and even capable of revival. On the other side, it has been argued that the identity of a person, as a member of a national community, was gradually separated from its human and civil rights. That led to the establishment of a 'postnational model of membership' -- individual and group rights independent of citizenship. According to the second camp, the nation state was fundamentally transformed and it has become an instrument for implementation of the international conventions and norms of human rights understood as personal instead of citizenship rights. There are also attempts to reconcile the two standpoints. These authors recognize the challenges to the conventional national mode of citizenship, but argue that the processes of citizenship transformation are primarily an internal issue for the liberal democracies. Some authors try to step out of the narrow and exclusive conceptual frameworks of the nation state and postnational membership, attempting to explain the conflicting transformation processes of citizenship rights. There are also proposals for new concepts of citizenship -- a multicultural and a supranational, for example -- as a response to the challenges of globalization and international migration. Finally, postmodern writers talk about postmodern or a cosmopolitan citizenship that is not immediately tied to the nation-state. Adapted from the source document.