How effective the role of civil society can be?
Khan Ferdousour Rahman

The United Nations once dealt only with governments. By now we know that peace and prosperity cannot be achieved without partnerships involving governments, international organisations, the business community and civil society. In today's world, we depend on each other", says UN Secretary General Kofi A Annan. Strengthening democratic institutions and supporting civil society are essential for ensuring both human rights and good governance. Hierarchical governmental system should be 'de-verticalised' into horizontal democratic institutions of governance. A democratic governance system is characterised by transparency of processes and accessibility to information.

The idea of civil society has become more prominent in political and development parlance over the past several years. This is mainly due to successive waves of democratisation, beginning from Latin America, across the Central and Eastern European countries and spreading through the developing world, including Africa and Asia. Political scientists and practitioners have come to the realisation that it is not just state institutions and policy initiatives that essentially ensure a high standard of democratic governance but also the civil society. The UN is increasingly both participant in and a witness to global civil society. The UN system has significant informal and formal arrangements with civil society organisations (CSOs), collectively known as non-governmental organisations (NGOs). More and more, NGOs are UN system partners and valuable UN links to civil society. NGOs are consulted on UN policy and programme matters. CSOs play a key role at major UN Conferences and as indispensable partners for UN efforts at the country level. At the same time, the UN is helping to promote the emergence of CSOs in the developing countries.

Civil society comprises the totality of voluntary civic and social organisations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political system). Civil society is generally viewed "as a sphere of association in society in distinction to the state, involving a network of institutions through which society and groups within it represent themselves in cultural, ideological and political senses."

The civil society was articulated during 1750-1850. Then it was disappeared for time being and revived in the late 20th century in the context of the demise of the communist states. It is also true that the term has been used differently by different social and political thinkers right from the days of Hegel and Marx. In Hegel's view, civil society was a sphere of contradictions that could be resolved in the higher institution of the state. The civil society includes the economic sphere and the social groups as well as the administrative and judicial institutions between the constitutional monarch and the family or the individual. The civil society in Hegelian state owes its existence to discretion of the government and lacks autonomy. The anti-liberal tradition takes on a meaning in Marxist discourse which holds that the forces of production determine the social relations and the forms of the state. Marx saw it as conflict, which would take the form of class struggles leading to the overthrow of the state. It is said that in the later writings of Marx, the concept of civil society was largely replaced by that of capitalist mode of production.

Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist, during the 1930s, conceived of civil society in a broader sense than that of society minus the state. His view was based on comparative theory of political changes through civil society. He argued that where civil society was weak as in the East, there could be a violent assault on the state as in Russia in 1917. In areas where civil society was strong as in the West, this was not possible. He further argued that the institutions of the civil society were 'outer earthworks' of the society. It was through the same that the ruling classes maintain their dominance in the society. It was, therefore, necessary to transform civil society as an alternative powerbase of the subordinate classes. It was only through such transformation that it would be possible to challenge state power.

The civil society may also provide new forms generally arising out of social movements. Under this typology, collective actors in civil society characterised by mass mobilisation or participation can act as alternative powerbase to challenge the state's monopoly powers of coercion to defend their own interests and welfare. Civil society's activities were originated in most countries to resist the arbitrariness and excesses of the government. Adam Ferguson made the radical assertion that a government, which represses the civic associations, is illegitimate. The civil society movements in the communist countries since late 1970s reasserted the liberal tradition. Initially, it directed its criticisms against bureaucratisation.

Civil society is the well-spring of the social capital, people working together for common purposes, which is essential for good governance. CSOs can fill the vacuum left by the slimmed-down state, and can advocate and monitor reforms that foster sustainable human development. UNDP considers collaboration with these organisations important because of their responsiveness, innovation, direct relationship with the poor, capacity to stimulate participation and articulate local views, cost effectiveness, local accountability and independent assessment of issues.

The civil society as organisation has emerged as a new paradigm which acts as agents for delivery of public goods and services. It refers to voluntary associations and organisations outside the market and state. It is very close to that of third sector, which consists of private organisations that are formed and sustained by groups of people acting voluntarily and without seeking personal profit to provide benefits for themselves or for others. The individuals are able to establish and maintain national networks through civil society or more precisely, through third sector. These voluntary associations also connect people with informal, loosely structured associations and consolidate society through altruism without obligation. Most discussions on civil society, which broadly includes NGOs involved in awareness-building, tend to point out that this has to be created first through collective initiative of individuals interested in good governance. This line of reasoning however is premised on the belief that civil societies created through such initiatives would act as a catalyst for change for the better. It also assumes that such initiatives must come from the so-called educated elite living in cities and organising seminars or discussions.

CSOs or NGOs, as the most active agents of civil society, have crucial advantages as well as serious weaknesses vis-à-vis government organisations and businesses. These can broadly be divided into the categories of 'legitimacy' and 'effectiveness'. The latter includes qualities such as flexibility, grassroots experience and mobility; while the former would include public trust, accountability and representation. Mandate and responsibility are cornerstones of any good organisation. The NGOs are primarily the service delivery agents. Some of them carry on advocacy of social policies and values which are difficult to isolate from the political and belief systems. NGOs or any other citizen groups engaged in public policy deliberations must be very clear about two things, i.e. mandate and stakeholders. Too often, various groups claiming to speak 'on behalf of the people', as alternatives to politicians and political parties. These generalisations, the 'we the people' type of claims are not just false and misleading, they can undermine the credibility and seriousness of NGOs as well. In addition these claims suggest that politicians and public officials do not act 'on behalf of the people', and they en block are morally inferior to citizen activists.

It is important to understand that civil society is complementary, not a rival, to representative democracy, and participatory democracy goes hand in hand with representative democracy. Civil society is about participation, while parliamentary democracy is about representation. The civil politics of citizen participation and the parliamentary 'party politics' of representation have a healthy dynamic of both complementarity and tension. Citizen participation carries its own self-originated legitimacy from representation. Unlike public officials, NGO leaders are not accountable to an electorate. On one hand, that limits their mandate. They cannot claim overall representation. On the other hand, this kind of independence from the electorate gives them the freedom, flexibility, and space, which constitute the comparative advantages of NGOs in national and global governance. CSOs are needed not because they 'represent the people', they are needed because through them people get things better. Their roles in the society are manifold, i.e. monitoring, advocacy, defending human rights, use of international mechanism, and mobilisation.

Bangladesh perspective

There is no need to import the western concept of civil society in our present socio-economic condition. The concept very well existed in our society through elderly 'madbar' people in various villages and through 'sarder' in 'panchayet system' in old Dhaka. Article 21 of Part II of our Constitution also ensures the duties of the citizens to go by the Constitution and the laws to maintain the discipline, to perform public duties and to protect public property.

Civil society means taking responsibility sportingly and voluntarily. NGOs including various think-tanks are having great role to play in terms of establishment of human rights, preservation of environment, women empowerment etc. Our civil society very well succeeded in banning polythene, removing 55,000 two stroke baby taxis from Dhaka city, enacting a new law to protect the water bodies and making new building construction rules.

As the politics is the rootless game of power, so the political society has grasped the civil society as well as the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy has been totally politicised by all the parties in power. Earlier the academicians used to be the head of the governing body of any educational institute, but now any chairman of governing body you see is a politician. Moreover Article 70 of our Constitution has enhanced autocratic rule, thereby establishing autocratic democracy and giving rise to dynasty. An MP becomes just obedient to a political party or head of the party. Here, the opposition is compelled to go out of parliament or even out of road. Under this situation it is still praiseworthy that our civil society has not yet completely surrendered to the politicians.

Civil society members may have political beliefs in mind, but that should not be expressed in their behaviour. Once it is expressed, then automatically the individual becomes politician, not remains as civil society member. Our civil society is weak, because few of our national politicians always take camouflage of professionals with an aim to divide them. But recently our civil society has strengthened them tremendously. For that our media also played a transparent role.

The importance of civil society in a democratic society cannot be overemphasised. Article 29 of UDHR states, "Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible." CSOs, therefore, have a role to play in creating a favourable climate for treaty implementation and instigating implementation.

Khan Ferdousour Rahman is a freelancer. http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/12/30/d612301503114.htm