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SUMMARY:Political Community Workshop 2013
DESCRIPTION:Hosted by the \nCentre for Citizenship\, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL) \nat the \nUniversity of Aberdeen\, Scotland \nTuesday 25th – Wednesday 26th June 2013 \nAcademic coordinator: Trevor Stack (t.stack@abdn.ac.uk) \nClick on session titles below for summaries\nNotions of political community are implicit in many or most contemporary debates (academic and public) of citizenship\, civil society\, rule of law\, democracy\, multiculturalism and human rights. But they are seldom made explicit and subject to analysis and reflection. That has also been our experience at the inter-disciplinary Centre for Citizenship\, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL). Having debated aspects of citizenship\, civil society and rule of law since our founding in 2009\, we have identified political community as a topic that crosscuts the three but which we have yet to comprehend fully. This year we debated the role of valuable resources in political community in our public conference “Politics of Oil & Gas in a Changing UK: International Perspectives” and political community is also key to our current research project on “Schooling in Political Community”. In our draft proposal for that project\, we do offer a working definition of political community: one whose members have a real stake in political institutions and\, for that reason\, subject themselves to the decisions of those institutions. We are open to other ways of defining and approaching the topic\, though\, and we invite participants in our Political Community workshop to give their own answers to the following questions: \n1. When “political community” has been the explicit topic of debates\, in particular times and places\, what is meant by “political” and what is meant by “community”? What is not considered political and what is not community?  To give just two examples\, how is political community distinguished from religious community? And community from society? \n2. What notions of political community have been caught up in citizenship\, civil society and rule of law? Does citizenship\, for example\, always entail political community? \n3. Can we identify political community beyond citizenship\, civil society and rule of law? For example\, are universities political communities? How about families\, businesses and churches? Is multitude\, as Hardt and Negri suggest\, an emergent form of political community? What other emergent political communities might there be? \nTuesday 25th June\nIntroduction (click on title to see session summary)\n9.30                Introduction: Trevor Stack and Matyas Bodig \n10.10              Discussion \nPolitical community and constitution making (click on title to see session summary)\n10.40              Hanna Lerner “Constitution writing\, democracy and (a divided) political community” \nWhat role should constitutions play in defining the identity of a political community? The question is particularly difficult when the constitution is written under conditions of deep disagreements between conflicting political communities over core ideational questions such as the state’s religious and national character. This\, is the case in most\, if not all\, contemporary projects of constitutional drafting. \nThe advice commonly provided by constitutional experts under conditions of deep disagreements over the state’s basic norms and values is to draft a “thin” constitution. According to this approach\, constitution-making process is not expected to interfere in value-ridden conflicts or reflect the identity of a particular political community. Rather its role is to provide a legal framework within which conflict resolution can be advanced. Thus\, a constitution should be thin in the sense that it avoids making decisions on contentious identity questions and focus on establishing democratic institutions that allow further deliberation on divisive issues. \nThe paper criticizes this common constitutional advice and argues that a thin constitution fails to provide a relevant constitutional framework for contemporary societies in which the political community is divided. While the ideal of a thin constitution may be normatively and theoretically attractive\, the paper demonstrates how given the social\, political and institutional realities of societies riven by identity conflicts\, this recommendation appears less viable and is eventually rejected by constitutional drafters. Drawing on the constitutional experience of Israel\, Turkey and India\, the paper further explores the foundational role of constitutions and the extent to which constitutions represent\, or should represent\, the identity of the political community/ies in their state. Among various alternatives\, the paper will discuss the incrementalist approach to constitution writing. \n11                               Tamas Gyorfi “The Legal Construction of Political Communities \nThe purpose of this paper is to examine how constitutional law conceptualises and constructs political communities. The paper will use Carl Schmitt’s constitutional theory as its point of departure. Schmitt claimed that the term ‘people’ has three different senses in constitutional law: the people anterior to or above the constitution\, the people within the constitution and the people compared with the constitution. The paper will explore (1) how different constitutions define constituent power; and (2) to what extent they accommodate the people within the constitution. Finally\, (3) the paper will subject the Schmittian idea of ‘the people compared with the constitution’ to critical scrutiny. \n11.20              Discussion \nA historical view (click on title to see session summary)\n\n12.10              Michael Brown “When is a religious community a political community? Irish eighteenth-century reflections” \nThis paper will explore how far governmental authorities came to understand religious dissidents to the confessional state as political antagonists\, and highlight some resistance to this co-incidence of identity. By looking at the Irish anti-Catholic legislation (the penal laws) it will track the emergence of the ‘papist’ as a figure in the legal imagination. It will then turn to the issue of religious conversion to complicate the story\, before looking at the existence of Protestant Jacobites and Castle Catholics. Finally it will examine the nature of cross-community collaboration as a mode of ordinary resistance to the political caricatures provided by the Irish confessional state. \n12.30              Discussion \nPhilosophical approaches (click on title to see session summary)\n1.40                John Perry “Models of political community in recent theology: pirates (in Augustine)\, relish (in Locke)\, and parables (in the Bible)” \nThe past generation of theologians have engaged political community as part of a larger critique of modernity\, especially targeting three villains: Locke\, Kant\, and Hume. On their account\, the modern nation-state is a rival object of allegiance to the church\, offering toleration only in exchange for a weakened loyalty to one’s religious community. While I am sympathetic to aspects of that story\, I shall in this paper identify some points where it goes wrong\, and offer a different story. Although political liberalism cannot (as its founders hoped) avoid all possible conflicts of loyalty between one’s God and one’s city\, there are neglected trajectories within modernity that lead to more satisfactory accounts of the relation between religious and political community than others. The modernity critic’s story is premised upon all modern moral and political theories being proceduralist\, neutralist\, and anti-teleological. Some are\, but some aren’t. In fact\, it may turn out that some aspects of Christian ethics can contribute to how ethics and citizenship are conceived in modern\, pluralist democracies. Three such aspects are: the importance of conceiving of ethics within a particular historically-extended community or tradition\, the view that moral reasoning and moral persuasion are imaginative rather than rationalistic or legalistic endeavours\, and that the proper ground of ethics is wellbeing or flourishing (that is\, it is eudaimonist rather than either deontological or utilitarian). \n2                      Daniel Koltonski “Political obligation and political community” \nAn account of the democratic citizen’s duty to uphold the law must make use of the notion of political community: it is only when she is a citizen of a genuine democratic community—a polity whose citizens are motivated in their political choices by some liberal conception of justice—that she must recognize as part of citizenship a duty to uphold the law. Absent such a community\, then\, she will not have such a duty. Why is that? Consider the case of an engaged and conscientious citizen—a citizen whose main aim is to live justly—who is confronted by a law she reasonably thinks to be unjust. How can she have a duty to uphold that law\, a duty that overrides her usual prerogative\, as a free person\, to act on her own moral judgments? She has a moral duty to uphold that law when she may reasonably regard it as the result of her fellow citizens responsibly exercising their moral agency with regard to questions of justice\, for upholding that law is the way\, in the inevitable circumstances of reasonable disagreement about justice\, for her to respect their equal rights to such responsible exercise in deciding upon the laws governing their lives together. Her duty to uphold the law\, jointly with her fellows’ duties to uphold the law\, is the correlative of their rights to an equal say. The duty to uphold the law is a duty distinctive of citizenship in a democratic community whose citizens exercise their moral judgment responsibly—and are known to do so—in making their political choices. And so\, it is in a political community in which a kind of thick reciprocity of political concern for justice actually\, and not simply aspirationally\, characterizes both the relationship of citizenship and so also the democratic processes\, that upholding the law will be what respect for one’s fellows as free and equal citizens requires. This is a very demanding account of political obligation—few\, if any\, states come close to achieving this sort of democratic community—but it is the sort of account one is lead to when one takes seriously the citizen who reasonably demands a justification for the claim that her citizenship requires that she against her own judgments about justice. And a liberal account of justice must take this citizen’s demand seriously. \n2.20                Discussion \nBeyond the state? (click on title to see session summary)\n3                      Sian Lazar “Creating political community” \nI will argue that it is important to conceptually delink citizenship from an automatic identification with the nation-state as the only political community at stake. If citizenship is membership of a political community\, we might contend that individuals have multiple citizenships – that is to say\, memberships of multiple political communities. I draw on research with members of two trade unions of public sector employees\, for whom the nation-state of Argentina and the city of Buenos Aires are two important political communities of which they are citizens. However\, I focus in particular on the argument that they are also members of the political community of their union. Although it might sound jarring to call them citizens of their union\, it is possible to analyse their membership along the lines of how we analyse citizenship more conventionally defined. Thus\, we need to start from the now well-accepted premise that citizenship goes beyond legal status\, and its corollary – that the processes and practices that make someone into a full member of a given political community are at least as important as the end result itself. My ethnographic material explores these questions in relation to two educational projects run by the unions to train new delegates: the School for Trade Union Training (Escuela de Formación Sindical) run by the peronist Union Personal Civil de la Nación (UPCN\, Union of National Civil Servants)\, and a smaller scale workshop run by the Asociación de Trabajadores del Estado (Association of State Workers\, ATE). The two unions have contrasting and in many ways rival political projects of unionism\, and these are reflected both in their educational processes and their conceptualisations of political community. For UPCN activists\, the political community of their union is an organism\, while for ATE activists\, it is a political project located in a wider history of trade unionism in Argentina. One major way this is made evident is in the way that their training reflects different organisational philosophies of participation and of political action. \n3.20                Trevor Stack “Competing or complementary notions of political community in contemporary west Mexico” \nWe have proposed defining a “political community” as one whose members have a real stake in political institutions and\, for that reason\, subject themselves to the decisions of those institutions. During fieldwork in west Mexico in 2007-10\, I found that my informants often expressed a bifurcated notion of person (or citizen): they were persons “in the eyes of the law” but they were ultimately persons “living in society”. By “society” they meant a matrix of dense and inescapable inter-dependencies\, giving rise less to voluntary associations than involuntary obligations\, and serving to contain the wayward will of fallen Man. Is this a version of political community as we are defining it? And is it alternative or complementary to political community as defined in law? I argue that 1) “society” could provide an alternative ground to the obviously political community constituted by law; 2) “living in society” did nevertheless entail a relationship with institutions such as local government\, which could be termed political community; 3) to some extent “living in society” complemented and even enriched the political community defined in law. The broader point is that political communities are not only multiple in the sense that they are nested or overlapping\, but that there can be competing grounds for political community; alternatively\, political community is itself necessarily multi-dimensional and will never be reducible to a single dimension such as the legal. \n3.40                Discussion \n4.40                Silvia Pasquetti “The affective foundation of subordinated political communities: Lessons from a West Bank refugee camp and an Israeli ‘mixed’ city” \nEmotions are key components in the making and unmaking of political communities. The activation of solidarity facilitates the pursuit of collective political projects. By contrast\, mutual distrust discourages people from pursuing shared political identities. Drawing on fieldwork within and across a West Bank refugee camp and the Arab districts of an Israeli city\, this paper explores the affective foundation of political communities among subordinated populations—subjects and citizens alike—experiencing exclusion due to their ethnonational\, ethnoracial\, or ethnoreligious membership. The point of departure of this analysis is an empirical puzzle: stateless camp dwellers invest in their group solidarity and perceive themselves as members of a political community while urban minorities with Israeli citizenship experience mutual distrust and withdraw from the public sphere. My research traces this difference in the shape and intensity of group life among these two sets of Palestinians to the workings of different ruling agencies\, especially their distinct uses of law\, coercion\, and language. Specifically\, I study the emotional and political effects of the interplay between military repression and humanitarian aid in the camp and those of the convergence of policing and security interventions in the minority district. This paper aims to use these empirical materials and arguments to address two questions posed by the Political Community Workshop organizers: the question of political community beyond citizenship and the question of the interplay between political community and access to scarce resources. The case of the Palestinian urban minorities draws attention to how stigmatized segments of a citizenry\, which are excluded from the dominant body politic due to their ethnonational (or ethnoracial) identity\, might also be prevented from forming a thriving minority political community. Similarly\, the case of stateless camp dwellers offers some important insights on the role that military repression and humanitarian aid might play in the creation of subordinated political communities. The question of access to scarce material and symbolic resources is also central to the diverging affective and political trajectories of Palestinian refugees and minority citizens\, highlighting how for poor people the creation of political communities is inextricably linked to the available survival strategies. To sum up\, this paper argues that exploring how different coercive and humanitarian discourses and practices affect emotional relationships among subordinate people—for example\, shaping whom they trust or distrust and whom they feel threatened by or have confidence in—is a necessary step toward a better understanding of the link between survival strategies and political projects\, including the formation of political communities. \n5                      Discussion \n\nWednesday 26th June\n\nQuestioning ‘community’ (click on title to see session summary)\n9                      Tea\, coffee and biscuits \n9.30                Ajay Gudavarthy “Politicizing community and economizing culture” \nPost-colonial theory/subaltern studies have for long projected community as the missing/suppressed link within western political theory. Hegel`s tripartite distinction between family\, civil society and state suppresses community\, which is essential for the global spread of capital. The conflict seems to be one between capital versus community. However\, post-colonial theory has accorded the idea of community only a heuristic place in its theory and it has remained\, by far\, an `empty category`. It has never been historically or sociologically spelt out as to what exactly are the contours and practices that imbricate the workings of the idea of community. It has only positioned community as the other of State\, civil society\, nation and modernity itself. Post-colonial theory has moved between a thick and a thin idea of community. Thick idea of community refers to naturalised- kinship-based cultural groups such as religious\, ethnic\, and caste groups\, whose core practices are face-to-face interaction\, they are localised and live in heterogeneous time that is different from that of nation and capital; they are ascriptive in nature and content. However\, in course of explicating the workings of community they freely move towards a thin- cosmopolitan- idea of community that includes individuals from various locations. For instance\, Partha Chatterjee`s idea of `political society` is a congregation of differentiated social groups\, including immigrants from Bangladesh. The tension between the two versions of community is glossed over. \nThis paper\, in light of the unexplored idea of community in post-colonial societies such as India\, attempts to conceptualise\, based on an ongoing ethnography\, certain core practices of what community is and what it looks like in contemporary context. It further argues that communitarian practices cut across caste\, gender\, ethnicity and nationality and reproduce certain core ontological and epistemological practices. These practices are not bereft of power relations but could well be a different mode of structuring power\, in contrast but not necessarily in conflict with that of modernity. \n9.50                Sourayan Mookerjea “The politics of community and the community of politics: Athabaskan Tar Sands Development” \nThis paper explores how the crises and contradictions of tar sands mining development in Fort McMurray\, Alberta enable us to re-theorize the concept of community. How are we to assess and understand the prolixity of the rhetoric of community in this context? Does the incitement of discourses on community in this instance stand as a symptom of a governmental strategy by now\, in the endgame of neoliberal ascendency\, tried and true? Or is there something else at stake here? After the complications and critiques of the politics of identity and difference\, what lessons regarding class politics do we draw from the crisis of community in the northern boom-towns of Alberta? Especially in the past five years\, big and small environmental organizations\, activists from the First Nations of Athabasca Chipewyan\, Chipewyan Prairie\, Fort McKay\, Fort McMurray\, and Mikisew Cree\, the Alberta Federation of Labour\, the Council of Canadians\, to name only a few organizations\, have launched public campaigns to either reform\, slow\, scale back or stop tar sand mining. This mobilization has continued to burst back into flames in ever different situations\, beginning with the National Energy Board hearings regarding the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal\, opposition to the broad legislative sweeps of the Harper government’s omnibus bills and most recently with the Idle No More movement. Given this diversity of social movement organizations and subject positions mobilized\, how do we understand the affinity or alliance that is emerging as a new kind of politics here\, the new form of subjectivity or becoming in common this development and its social crises brings to life? Bringing into critical juxtaposition the post-Gramscian and postcolonial theorization of subalternity with Hardt and Negri’s concept of the multitude\, this paper queries the historical content of the truth that binds political rhetoric enabling various social movements to act in solidarity in opposing tar sands development\, and interrogates the community of politics that this politics of community seems to promise. In doing\, I argue for the importance of a Utopian social poetics of mediation to what Boaventura de Sousa Santos has called the project of a “sociology of absences”. \n10.10              Discussion \n10.50              Tea\, coffee and biscuits \nToward global political community? (click on title to see session summary)\n11.10              Raul Acosta “Constructive hostilities: dissent\, transnational activism and the ethical imagination” \nAn aggregation of individuals does not constitute a community\, as this entails some level of intimacy among its members. In much of the literature focused on social collectives\, group solidarity is sought in shared ethnic or religious traits\, or perhaps a common heritage of life in a locality. Those focused on cosmopolitanism tend to focus on mechanisms through which differences among individuals may be bridged. Both logics appear to assume positive attitudes towards those included\, and negative to those who are not. The cosmopolitan effort is thus to extend the net of inclusion. This paper argues that the conflictive negotiations over what is shared among a community’s members render a collective political. Discords in political scenarios are usually portrayed as power struggles\, with the class struggle as the best example. Although such disparities are clear breeding grounds for conflicts\, apparently calm situations among members of a similar status may also originate strong disagreements. It is open dissent over public affairs that creates a sense of community. The processes of negotiation over what is shared\, either in physical form (such as territory or goods) or in intangible form (e.g. ideas or symbols)\, are thus essential in the making of the community. The form in which dissent is performed and dealt with in turn shapes the collective. It is a becoming of the political dimension of social relations within it. Political anthropology has sought to examine the many forms through which people resolve such matters. Various ceremonial strategies to channel commotions have been documented in valuable ethnographies. As contrasting cultural traditions have travelled and are increasingly interpreted and assimilated\, a new political landscape is emerging. The methodological nationalism that pervades most political analyses is no longer useful to understand the processes of construction of collectives. Some identities\, as many considered indigenous in Latin America\, have become reinforced and used in political struggles without negating external influences. What these appear to show is an exercise of an extended ethical imagination\, seeking to reinvent local political communities while at the same time collaborating across borders. \n11.30              Gal Levy “An end to political community: the global social protest and the future of citizenship” \nIn the last decade or so\, it has become more and more prevalent in citizenship studies that the notion of citizenship is much more encompassing than is the idea of citizen as a right-bearing member in a political community\, namely the nation-state. The study of citizenship has long left its formal\, legal confines and even the mere investigation of ‘who is a citizen?’. It has thus grown from a legal concept to a rich sociological and political concept\, depicting not only ideological regimes and discourses\, but also the power of citizenship as it is enacted by citizens and non-citizens alike. In this context\, the idea of citizenship as merely as a prerogative of the state\, and as a manifestation of state power\, has been replaced by new understanding of ‘citizenship beyond the state’ (Gordon and Stack 2007). \nOn a different level\, the notion of community has also taken various faces. More importantly\, with the rise of neo-liberalism and globalisation\, and against the erosion of the notion of national\, territorially-bounded societies\, ‘community’ rose as an alternative ‘spatialisation of government’ (Rose 1996). This\, to cite Rose further\, had had several implications not only on the territory of the political\, but also gave rise to ‘anti-political motifs’ (Rose 1996: 352). Consequently\, the notion of community\, which was partly born against the ills of modernising societies\, turned into another means of government\, and an expression of the weakening of ‘the hold of “the social” over our political imagination’ (Rose 1996: 353). \nAgainst this backdrop\, and in light of the social protest that swept the world after the ‘Arab Spring’ and against the 2008 Global Financial Crisis\, it is timely to ask what does it mean to have or to build a political community at these times\, and what it entails to the future of citizenship in the aftermath of the World Social Protest. \n11.50              Discussion \n12.50              Sandwich lunch \nInternational political community? (click on title to see session summary)\n1.40                Matyas Bodig “States\, peoples\, communities: the problems of the construction of collective subjectivity in international law” \nI take the state to be an institutional entity that delivers governance over a population on a designated territory. This governance presupposes a certain normative capacity\, and for this reason\, it comes with a claim of sovereign political authority. Naturally\, this capacity has conditions of legitimacy. These conditions are\, of course\, manifold. In my paper\, I focus on the conditions of legitimacy that have taken the form of international norms. What enables international norms to play this role is that participation in international cooperation for a government is dependent on recognition by fellow governments\, and\, over the last few decades\, international law has channelled the conditions of recognition more and more through the norms of Charter international law (the UN Charter itself\, the norms of international human rights law\, etc.). I argue that the relevant norms fit into a conceptual framework that came to define the conceptual parameters of statehood. Most importantly for my own analysis\, at the heart of that conceptual framework\, we find the idea that a putative state can only be compliant with the foundational norms of international law if it is in a representational relationship with a ‘people.’ In my paper\, I use the concept of ‘political community’ to reveal the dynamics of this association between ‘peoples’ and statehood. My analysis is profoundly determined by a conceptual claim: political communities (‘peoples’) only exist in reflective contrast with political institutions. I argue that\, as our ideas of statehood became more and more settled around a uniform set of criteria for ‘good governance’\, the idea of political community became more and more closely associated with certain attributes of statehood: most importantly its particularism\, territoriality and exclusivity. In the paper\, I analyse the problematic implications of this conceptual dynamics: the difficulties of even making sense of transnational political communities\, the difficulties of constructing effective statehood where the territorial and normative space is shared by several overlapping political communities (exacerbating political conflicts about\, e.g.\, the status of minority groups and indigenous peoples)\, and the difficulties of addressing the political challenges of limited statehood (in places like Kosovo\, Somalia or Afghanistan). \n2                      Nigel Dower “Global\, international and national political community compared” \nThe particular character of political community within a nation-state can partly be illumined by a comparison with the idea of international political community whose members are nation- states\, and the idea of global political community whose members are politically engaged global citizens. The tensions within domestic politics between realist (power)\, public order and common good conceptions are reflected in conflicting accounts of international politics between realism\, internationalism and cosmopolitanism. The idea of global political community reflects cosmopolitan perspectives\, and either complements accounts of international community or clashes with realist accounts of international relations that deny the real existence of international political community. \n2.20                Discussion \n3                      Tea\, coffee and biscuits \n3.20                Small group discussion \n4.10                Plenary discussion \n5                      End of session
URL:https://cisrul.blog/event/political-community-workshop-2013/
CATEGORIES:Conference,Workshop
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SUMMARY:What Civil? What Society?
DESCRIPTION:What Civil? What Society?\n\n\n\n\n\nInter-disciplinary workshop \n\n\n\nWe propose to examine the workings of the concept of ‘civil society’ not just in contemporary Europe and North America but historically and in contexts across the world as well as across academic disciplines. We will seek not to define ‘civil society’ but to identify the consequences – political\, legal\, social\, moral\, epistemological – of particular ways in which ‘civil’ and ‘society’ have been defined in different times and places. In so doing we will pose five overarching questions: \n\n\n\n1. What has been held (in different times and places) to make a society (or part of it) civil as opposed to uncivil (or barbarous)? What have been the consequences of such a distinction? \n\n\n\n2. How and to what effect has civil society been distinguished as a domain or sphere of society from domains considered non-civil (if not necessarily uncivil) such as politics\, the economy\, the ecclesiastical or religious\, the military\, family and law? \n\n\n\n3. What distinctions have been made between civil and civic\, and to what effect? \n\n\n\n4. What notions of society lie behind or are associated with notions of civil society? How have notions of society shifted from the medieval and early modern periods to the 19th-century birth of social sciences to contemporary debates about whether society exists or not? \n\n\n\n5. Have notions of civil society (and society) been defined by law or by some other means\, and what is the difference in practice? In what other ways does civil society get linked to law? \n\n\n\nSpeakers\n\n\n\nRaul Acosta\, Centre for the Study of Applied Ethics\, Deusto University\, Bilbao\, has been working on orderly dissent in the contexts of the Brazilian Amazon\, west Mexico and the Mediterranean.Jeffrey Alexander\, Professor of Sociology at Yale\, is the author of The Civil Sphere which begins with a history of the civil society concept in scholarship and then goes on to identify a ‘civil sphere’ of organisations in US society that have pursued a set of values through\, for example\, the incorporation of the Jews into post-war US society and the Civil Rights struggle.Matyas Bodig\, Senior Lecturer in Law at Aberdeen\, is a legal theorist who has worked on a range of issues concerning rule of law and the nature of the modern state.Michael Brown\, Lecturer in History at Aberdeen\, has written extensively on the Scottish and Irish Enlightenments\, with a focus on civil society.Karin Friedrich\, co-director of the Centre for Early Modern Studies and Senior Lecturer in History at Aberdeen\, is working on the contribution of pre-modern civil society\, especially in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth\, to reform and modernisation\, the development of the rule of law\, and modern forms of political engagement.Dmitry Goncharov\, Professor of Political Science\, National Research University Higher School of Economics\, has published extensively on civic community in post-Communist society.Ajay Gudavarthy\, Assistant Professor of Political Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University\, has published on the history of human rights movements in India\, as well as affirmative action programs and subsistence governmental benefits\, and is concluding a critical volume on Chatterjee’s notion of ‘political society’.Philip Oxhorn\, director of the Institute for the Study of International Development at McGill University\, has published a number of books including Sustaining Civil Society: Economic Change\, Democracy and the Social Construction of Citizenship in Latin America and Organizing Civil Society: The Popular Sectors and the Struggle for Democracy in Chile.Trevor Stack\, director of CISRUL and Lecturer in Hispanic Studies\, Aberdeen\, is writing on how people in Mexico and California distinguish between law and what could be termed ‘civil sociality’.Andrea Teti\, Lecturer in Politics & IR at Aberdeen\, works on democratization in the Middle East and has published on the concept of civil society in the democratization literature.Ekow Yankah\, Associate Professor at Cardoso Law School\,  is working on the appropriate role of virtue in law generally and criminal law particularly\, including in relation to harms-to-self\, prostitution decriminalization and moral agreement as well exploring new relationships between profiling under the threat of terrorist attacks\, liberalism and government obligations.\n\n\n\nSchedule\n\n\n\nMonday 25TH June\n\n\n\nSession 1\n\n\n\nJeffrey Alexander “Boundary Crossing: How Recent Social Crises Are Constructed as Endangering Civil Spheres”\n\n\n\nHow are sphere-specific strains translated into problems for society as whole? \n\n\n\nCivil Society I: civil understood as broadest range of associations incl. small businesses\, churches etc. \n\n\n\nbut little scope for addressing class conflict > failed to discriminate among sphere\n\n\n\nCivil Society 2: associates w selfishness of property and injustices; vertical rather than horizontal—repair by regulatory states; until late 20th cent when welfare state had largely resolved social question and then falling of totalitarian socialists\, seems that return to umbrella concept \n\n\n\nNow Civil Society 3: does not reduce to private property or to everything outside state\, but community of autonomous yet mutually obligated people who simultaneously experience solidarity and respect for each other \n\n\n\nbinaries: pollutes qualities that thought to endanger civil society e.g. secrecy etc. but also through public opinion\, law\, office and electoral processes allow to reward those deemed civil and stigmatize those who notcivil sphere can be seen as aspirational\, setting up narratives that allow people to speculate on what others’ responses will be: real civil spheres project utopian possibilities with one hand and take back with the other; civil spheres are restless and boundaries always moving\, hence practices that acceptable at one point in time\, at other time seems repugnant\, e.g. separation of gender\n\n\n\nEvery sphere experiences strains but with steady state\, these are introduced internally to spheres e.g. issues within church; but at certain point\, outrages broader society and mechanisms that bring back to steady state \n\n\n\nTwo examples: \n\n\n\n1. Church pedophilia\n\n\n\nPractices w pre/pubescent inside church for centuries; revealed that church had been concerned for decades\, mainly to conceal from broader world \n\n\n\nconsidered unavoidable fact of life > Catholic doctrine understood not as violating universal standards but evidence of fallen nature of man\, for which confession and contrition is answeras institution concerned to maintain functioning\, esp since shortage of priestsfocus on priests and counselling for them\, rather than victims\, and commending work of many priestsalso Pope praises bishop who risks prison rather than hand over priest to civil courts; Ratzinger responds to discussions in US Confs of Bishops by saying Confs had no theological basis >sealing internal religious from external: argues that othrs wld have tried to take advantage of us\n\n\n\nSince 2002 media scandals\, reported not just as news but as moral judgements intended to disturb readers\, evoking moral criteria of civil sphere\, arguing that shocking rather than just cause for regret \n\n\n\nnot so much paedophilia as fact than as mediatisation; people didn’t know that justified to condemn until civil spherealso police and legal power: Grand Juries of citizens to which DAs as legal officials of civil sphere present evidence; abuse vicitms bring 1000s of civil cases\n\n\n\nChurch worried about effects of publicizing sex abuses\, arguing media for self interest\, lawyers for pursuing money\, Jews\, Communists and Protestants \n\n\n\nChurch’s struggle not to extend statute for limitations revealed; foot-dragging over implementation and not always local\, public support that required in US for law enforcement\, e.g. where parish mobilisation in towns\, juries don’t convict so many plea bargained instead of publicly tried\n\n\n\nNYT church 2008 pitted against society… using language of civil sphere: openness\, accountability etc. \n\n\n\n+ only just first priest convicted in US \n\n\n\n2. Financial crisis\n\n\n\nEconomy is another non-civil sphere \n\n\n\nBelieved that economic destabilization was past; deregulation from public control inspired by confidence in economic self-regulation\, incl. repealing New Deal law not allowing securities to be mixed with bank deposits\, to protect citizens from market; but because markets seem to be tamed \n\n\n\nAt point of crisis\, crisis within sector becomes mediatised > not controlled internally by elected representatives of civil sphere \n\n\n\nResistance of economic sphere; managers wld accept bailouts but then engine still working so can go back to internal regulation\n\n\n\nMedia accuses of being \n\n\n\nhedonists\, which is opposite of civil sphere\, condemns as gambling casinoarrogance\n\n\n\nLaws passed etc. \n\n\n\nFor neither side is ever enough: standoff is always inevitable? \n\n\n\nDiscussion\n\n\n\nEkow Yankah: not clear in that civil pushing in on non-civil in sex scandals > not clear that priests abuse more than general public: media not looking beyond church\, any more than does in case of Penn State trainer > seems more like indicting institutions or persons\, rather than addressing broader problems > about humiliating \n\n\n\nmedia reps are personalised etc.; true that pictured as immoral but in fact acting by morality of own sphere e.g. prudence and caution in Lehmann Brothers > portraying as amoral is what gives leverage; does dehumanize them\n\n\n\nKarin Friedrich: binary constructions—w financial\, construction of we and them but how about people who took out mortgages etc. \n\n\n\nmodernity has thought through compexification and growing autonomy of different spheres; individual is member of several and pulled between these\, but logics are independent of each othertakes binaries from L-S\, Saussure etc. which say classification and turns into classifications which can be terrible; but civil sphere promises to overcome and bring us together as community\, even though itself rests on binary distinctionsas opposed to? Thank God we’re American and not French etc.; says workin class invluded through fighting in wars against X\n\n\n\nAndrea Teti: how can apply civil sphere when have multiple civil spheres\, and also where no scandals e.g. in Italy where all these things happen but no scandal \n\n\n\ndegrees of polarisation\, but does happen e.g. in Nixon scandal when Demos and Repubs join to agree even though damaged them\, but no crisis is ever shared by society as such e.g. left has its crisis and right has its and will not agree on them\n\n\n\nDanielle: media has galvanising effect\, leading to crescendo and dimuendo of scandals \n\n\n\nstandards of journalism are quite civil e.g. fairness\, objectivity etc.law also organised around civil responsibility\n\n\n\nNigel Dower: if ethical consumer\, trying to influence economic activity in particular way > not just multiple identities; also not just church but also charities e.g. Oxfam that resist transparency even though presumably are civil sphere\, too \n\n\n\nethical consumer is taking into role as economic actor but reflects binary\n\n\n\nHilary Homans: why was 2002 tipping point for church scandals? Need to distinguish The Church as faith-based organisations etc. e.g. can find Holy See negotiating with countries in events…. \n\n\n\nyes distinctions e.g. dioceses often wanted to move more quickly; also Catholic abusers organisatios that are civil society but\n\n\n\nAjay Gudavarthy: underlying assumption that maintaining social order + residual—what left out of non-civil spheres; being open can also be idea of market contractual relations—what point does it play each role? \n\n\n\nThinks no way of understanding what happens when system stalls and how repairs than civil sphere—so not just about social orderAlso that about justice rather than social order; actually disruptive to social order—can legitimate injustice in other spheres but not entirelyTrying to make not residual category by defining as own systemConflicts w gender\, working class etc. doesn’t happen without civil sphere: where do unions appeal for sense of justice?\n\n\n\nPhil Oxhorn: two cases v different bc no one trusts business and supposed to trust church\, which supposed to define moral order; Murdoch in US has Fox Media which has bigger sway on voting \n\n\n\nNot true that no one trusts business people\, or that everyone trusts Catholic church esp since Prot demonization in USViolation of Milly Dowler’s voicemail was what triggered phone hacking scandal > brings society together when seemed fragmented\n\n\n\nAndrea Teti: on binaries\, signifiying chain although visualised as binaries bc border always has outside; how identifies logic of exposure? \n\n\n\nTensions btw boundaries—attempt to make meaning undermines boundary\n\n\n\nPhilip Oxhorn “Civil Society and the Evolution of Citizenship in Latin America”\n\n\n\nRecent crises more severe than past ones in Latin America which brought out military \n\n\n\nCivil society: resist subordination to state and demand inclusion into national political structures \n\n\n\nEsp.important where states coopt or absorb civil society for political ends\n\n\n\nWhere civil society strong\, dispersal of power; but in LA\, obstacle to civil society is inequality; and civil society is realm of conflict \n\n\n\n+ people get involved bc realize that does mean something\, not just wasting time \n\n\n\nMinimal consensus for defining civil society: often too high\, which assumes consensus that arguavly renders participation unnecessary\, if already agreeing; so better to set lower\, esp when more collective tradition and when trust is low as in Latin America; lack of civil society not bc lack of trust but what causes lack of trust \n\n\n\nFor any reasons\, in it w another group of people: need to define what public is in order to define public good; typically nation-stateAgree to coexist with other people > non-violent; civility is important\n\n\n\nParadox: cant understand indepde of relation w state > transnational dubious bc no supranational state \n\n\n\nAutonomy just means capacity of organisations to define and defend interests in competition w actors incl state i.e. not that reciving aid from state but that receiving w no strings attached [defining value]State-society synergy: achieving public good e.g. finding cure for river blindness in Senegal > not enough hospitals and ppl don’t go to them: villages select representatives to ensure ppl take medicines in exchange for meal etc… have legitimacy as representatives and from civil society\, and delivered at minimal cost\n\n\n\nSocial construction of citixenship: \n\n\n\nMarshall: starts w property w capitalism\, but to make meaningful need to expand w political rights etc. and as capitalism flourishes\, added social rights which legitimates inequalities produced by capitalism: necessary for capitalism to flourish > he is right for Britain but not bc capitalists’ foresight but synergy w stateIn Latin America\, ability of workers to organise autonomously and then later demand political rights and eventually social rights [chimes w advanced working rights in Mex Constit]Even if we think we agree on what should be right\, in fact radically different in practice\, incl. how to be effected: struggle over what citizen rights do and do not exclude—not inevitable process as Marshall seems to suggestStrength of civil society can be measured in rights of citizenship e.g. US civil rights movement\, which mobilises around what rights; women’s movement\n\n\n\nThree diff kinds of citizenship developed in L.A. though also in other developing countries \n\n\n\nCitizenship as cooptation: criterion is political\, included if toe the line although even then limits to inclusion > controlled inclusion—civil rights precarious if cross lines; political rights contingent—democratic politics is means t/w ends rather than end in itself; social rights unequal esp. between formal and informal sectors>>reinforces rather than reduces structural inequality: mechanism for social stability\, divide and conquer; working class struggles e.g. in Argentina were meaningful but limited and ultimately to accept status quo that only bit better than what previouslyCitizenship as agency: role of multiple actors in construction of what means to be citizen e.g. Morales: redefining what meant to be Bolivian vs. shame of children in school who recent migrants from Andes; but problems of poverty etc. prove difficult to rectify; but reflects weak civil society which means polarisation btw haves have-nots and diff movements etc.; self-limiting radicalism in which polit democracy b/c end in itselfCitizenship as consumption: have votes as well as economic resources but used to accessorize: universal polit rights but limited civil and eroding social; in btw elections few checks on power of elected leaders > few checks; real decisions made outside democra institutions >> economic rsoureces determine quality of healthcare etc.; high level of impunity\, and poor seen as suspects; education which key to success which now has universal access but public education so low quality and also little promise of higher income > low social mobility\n\n\n\nBut citizenship as consumption not exclusive to others e.g. using US consumer groups to put pressure on + elections can bring in more inclusionary form of citizenship \n\n\n\nBolivia: Law of Popular Participation—transforms munitipcalities and creates more > decentralises incl budget fixing quota for municipalities; ensured participation not just in electoral but also territorial organisations\, which were mostly indigenous organisations > hybrid democracy btw indi forms of collective govt and elections; But didn’t work bc \n\n\n\nDominated by presidentTerritorial basis to avoid functionally based incl. unions and chambers of commerce (deemed too conservative) despite being main proponents of decentralisationSuspicion of state\n\n\n\nWent through but since only way to get coparticipation funds: so ends up citixzenship as cooptation \n\n\n\nLegal representation didn’t mean that socially recognized > captred by elites; and no effort to mobilise civil society… and many organisations excluded e.g. women’s organisations\, irrigation committees etc. although later recognised that problem in that women’s participation decreased\, seemingly bc men interested in funds being channelled through municipalities which not before \n\n\n\nWeakness of committees etc. partly bc seen as created by state and not by civil society; also relying on munci govts for transparency \n\n\n\n>> v far from citizenship as agency; leads to massive protests culminating in Morales’ victory \n\n\n\nVs. Porto Alegre\, where civil society allowed to take initiative \n\n\n\nDiscussion\n\n\n\nHilary: what happens when citizens and civil society are displaced? \n\n\n\nConcentration of power makes difficult for civil society\, although civil society mobilises to challenge inequality—disadvantage groups are first to mobiliseDiffic w Occupy Movement that didn’t articulate what wanted; similarly\, objects to labelling as neoliberal anything that don’t like\, when much that is progressive e.g. opening to state working w civil societyRights achieved by collective movements even if most rights but not all individual\n\n\n\nDmitri: what effect of prolifer of citix on informal institutions? \n\n\n\nIn Bolivia yes informal but still important and social legitimacyIn LA informal usually about creating impunity\, undermining rule of law > regressive: e.g. study in Mexico City that people asked to pay bribes were poor who seemed vulnerable\n\n\n\nIna: top-down process? \n\n\n\nPorto Alegre comes out of Constituent Assembly rather than from LPP style; legitimates experimentation\, opening door for bottom up processesSome of old indigenous traditions resurfacing incl blocing highways etc. which can also be problem if step threshold of civilityDemonstrations in favour of democracy but also feeling that not to rock boat in case end up back in authoritarianism; although easier to mobilise against authoritarian regimes-once got\, then have to define and defend interests: new skillsBeen in meetings when first half is about how important to be here\, which suggests that not going to be much substance\n\n\n\nKaren: supranational e.g. in Haiti; and how labour comes in \n\n\n\nStill reliant on government to have wherewithal to distribute aidOrganised labour is key in UK and also in Latin America; but women’s movements often founded by women who found excluded from organised labour > trigger other projects\n\n\n\nRaul: finds in Mex meetings that low tolerance for dissent—don’t like it when someone has different opinion \n\n\n\nDistrust can lead to participation but can also be problem esp when fearGiuliani held up as model bc of zero tolerance but neglect his community policing which can be effective as conflict resolutionWhen communities allowed to influence what taught in schools\, level goes up\n\n\n\nBerlin: what is civility and where comes from? \n\n\n\nCivility in European history came at huge cost incl. genocide; qu of how to achieve other than homogenization of nation-stateMexico: values civility bc seen what happens when lose it; also non-violence bc know that police provoke violence as pretext for using itCivil society has been dependent variable and goal is to make independent variable\n\n\n\nKarin: in republics as he said for LA\, lack of trust stimulates civic participation \n\n\n\nSession 2\n\n\n\nAndrea Teti “The Politics of ‘Civil Society’ in the Middle East”\n\n\n\nCivil society in democratis literature often not constructed as site of struggle; practical effects do exact opposite of what supposed to do > undermining democratic transitions; civil society treated by EU as sweets given out > holding parties at embassies etc. to promote \n\n\n\nVs. Unions etc. who involved in Arab Spring \n\n\n\nOrientalism in democrati studies: ‘impossibility of democracy’ \n\n\n\nBefore 1979 argued that nothing independent of state in Oriental state: argued that possible to have emancipation but not in conditions; state not powerful enough to control emancipator movement\n\n\n\nStresses that his argument fits not with morning’s papres but with democrati literature \n\n\n\nRelat with stateSpace of good manners\n\n\n\nSets up impasse that excludes \n\n\n\nIslamist movementsLabour movements\n\n\n\n…and hostility t/w them antagonises these movements\, which tends to polarise \n\n\n\nFunding follows model of what civil society; opposite organisations start to describe selves as civil society—space resisting authoritarian practices of state; states then themselves flood civil sphere w CSOs that then fund; understood that “slow transformation” \n\n\n\nOpposes democratising other and democratised self\, but at same time smuggle in Orientalist assumptions of alterity—introduces goals but in way that makes impossible > and not just failure but allows ways of delegitimating and arguing that failed to democratise e.g. Hamas election\, as well as AK party in Turkey \n\n\n\nAjay Gudavarthy “Post-Civil Society”\n\n\n\nCivil society theory argues that tensions between CS practices  and that these are productive\, but he argues that tensions cancel out democra potential of each practice\, congealing democratic space rather than leading to its expansion \n\n\n\nDalit movement\n\n\n\nPrivileges practices of universal citizenship etc. but also celebration of cultural differences; dalit movement marginalised bc claims of universal citizenship—accused of being particularistic\, sectarian and stigmatised as such; dalit movement pushed out of civil society \n\n\n\nTo defend its claim to civil society\, takes identarian claim\, essentializing by claiming to represent themselves bc have “lived experience”; CS responds by arguing on one hand that inward looking while allows entry point in name of politics of difference > discourse of tolerance or multiculturalism\, which also tends to natrualise social hierarchies\, also turning difference into distance \n\n\n\nCivil Rights movement\n\n\n\nArgument that civl society part of state but others outside state; attempt to resolve by arguing that inside when democratic\, outside when authoritarian> but AG argues that works simultaneously\, entrapping opostional movements \n\n\n\nOver emphasis on legality\, on one handOn other hand\, argument of civil society as pure realm of freedom (making constit democracies more free) but undermining negotiations with hierarchies\n\n\n\nTwo arguments get locked into each other (end up hyper-legislating) \n\n\n\nFeminist movement\n\n\n\nHere two arguments \n\n\n\nCS as space for legislationCS as autonomous political action\n\n\n\n…although supposed to moderate each other\, in fact congeal: autonomous action begins to be read as withdrawl of state e.g. microcredit self-resposibility vs. Hyper-legislation e.g. having to care for parents \n\n\n\nInstead of moderating\, creates two extreme forms\n\n\n\nNew turns in political movements\n\n\n\nIdentify ways of breaking deadlock of congealing into polarised camps that block each other \n\n\n\ne.g. RoL: usually polarised dichotomy of either law/dialogue or anarchy/violence\, but principle of RoL used to mean more than just order\, allowing for coexistence of modalities of violence with law\, creating processes of dialogue\, giving for peace and order but peace and justice \n\n\n\n> resignifying to avoid getting caught in binary logic civil society \n\n\n\nDiscussion\n\n\n\nAjay all kinds of violence equalised in order to eliminate any and every groups like Taleban\, Maoists etc. > post-civil society: instead of taking moral approach\, accepts possibility \n\n\n\ne.g. peace talks with Maoists: state govt of Andra Pradesh changes position to make for dialogue even though arms—not possible w/i sanitised space of civil society \n\n\n\nEkow: Rawls: can’t impose on people particular views but public reason\, distinguishing between comprehensive schemes and public frameworks\, making complicated distinction arguing that should ultimately be possible to justify in non-comprehensive terms \n\n\n\nAjay: already problem in Rawls distinction of public and culture\n\n\n\nJeff: Andrea and Ajay agree in that see discourse of civil society as bad\, claiming that leads into anti-democratic processes: is Orientalism inherent to discourse of civil society? seems Islamic movement embracing civil society; not sure that violence accepted as form of dialogue just bc state govt accepts as long as put guns away + in fact most movements have moved away from Maoism as way of redistribution thru violent distribution \n\n\n\nAndrea: Orientalism not inherent; particular concept of civil society and democracy which excludes social and economic rights etc. thus not seeing e.g. in Egypt that union movement demanding economic rights—blindness built into way democracy understoodAjay: shift from moral take on violence to political take is what makes post-civil\n\n\n\nKaren: watches media report that shows women saying not to vote for Islamists bc wld have to veil again > she asks whether this is just media discourse or what pl saying; in Polish-Lithuania\, law that allowed rebellion which even king could join—violence as part of politics that not illegal \n\n\n\nAjay: wld need to look at specificitis to see whether moral take on violence etc.\n\n\n\nPhil: right to take up arms in US constitution which can be problematic; first qu is what actors themselves intending\, incl whether compatible w democracy or not e.g. MB keeps away from April 6 bc don’t want to get involved; are groups opprtunitstically getting invovled? And different when trying to end armed conflict and pursuing variety of goals; many issues raised by Ajay engaged w/i civil society literature e.g. whether working within or outside system \n\n\n\nAjay: another aspect of post-civil is that going beyond systemic vs. non-systemic\, so feminists movement undermining law but still using law\, unlike Maoist movement\n\n\n\nBerlin civil disobedeicen already poses question of when uncivil means allowed for civil ends \n\n\n\n+ JA tradition of just war etc. and other old ways of justifying violence\, such as exhaustion of other channels \n\n\n\nAjay: India claiming modern\, liberal state with civil society that doesn’t allow justification for violence\, but these movements are finding new justification\n\n\n\nJA In order to justify violence\, need to argue that not civil society and that violence is therefore appropriate and only means open to them \n\n\n\nSession 3: Responses to first day\n\n\n\nMatyas Bodig\n\n\n\nAgrees that no civil society w/o state or at least authoritative institutions \n\n\n\nRelation of ppl who treat themselves as duty bound to observe norms of civility t/w others: doesn’t have to be everyone and ready to form strong political ties w them \n\n\n\n…though idea of community not built into norms of civility; need political process\, institutional scaffolding > authorities generate normative space in which ppl come to recognise each other; civility is normative baseline\, can then add specific moral ties that make particular community \n\n\n\nMany types of authorities e.g. local\, global\, if authoritative institutions… but only authorities that claim representational relation over those over whom exercise authority \n\n\n\nStates do  not necessarily establish represent relation w subjects but increasingly hard for modern states not to\, not least bc international legal norms that require them to do soSeek legitimation on part of citizens\n\n\n\nPossible that no normative space opened up for civil society e.g. Stalinist state \n\n\n\nPolitical integration which necessary for authority; civil society offers one way of achieving political integration—becomes active part of legitimating process for polit institutions: gets chance to become active agent for determining normative identity of political community etc. i.e. terms of political integration \n\n\n\n+ other way of legitimating is law \n\n\n\nConstitutional democracy is form of government that balances civil society and law > constitution is mechanism\, typically bc civil society made constitutive through election process\, linking that legitimacy w legal validity: law provides normative parameters foc civil society but makes civil society constitutive of its own legitimacy \n\n\n\nBut has dark side: bc civil society created in nprmative space by state\, state shapes and will be inherently limiting\, favouring organised groups\, rewarding social capital\, limits access of minority; nowhere near free of oppression\, laden w ideology\, develops mechanisms of exclusion \n\n\n\nEngagement w civil society comes at a cost: accept represent relationship w state and not all states are worthy of that; accepting civility including renouncing violence which can be diff if fellowmembers who want to repress you; accepting law as proxy to civility\n\n\n\nThere is politics outside civil society > can engage in revolutionary politics \n\n\n\nBut civil society is more inclusive than anything that can reasonably imagine\, and always open to further inclusion \n\n\n\n+ in absence\, not clear how else would achieve political community \n\n\n\nEven when state is unpalatable\, he would argue that societies need modern state; would ask Ajay how else would envisage political institutions\, what would be mechanism \n\n\n\nNigel Dower\n\n\n\nAjay not offering post-civil society but neo-civil society\, just as possible to question development paradigm without dismissing \n\n\n\nMay be sense in global civil society just as ND interested in global citizenship though often argued that can’t be w/o state: gloval citizenship is liberating concept for many people—asserts moral claim that one belongs to global community \n\n\n\n+ relation to global institutions: if concern w public good and commitment to non-violent\, apply equally to global level \n\n\n\nQuestion of means and ends: much discussion has been about what means are consistent w civil society as well as range of goals \n\n\n\nnon-violence for Quakers like himself not just as tactical means but also as endalso qu of body that uses democratic means for something quite differentis cooperation a tactic to be discarded when achieved what want?\n\n\n\nFollowing model of civil disobedience\, possible to see violence used to create conditions in which desirable political order may be possible \n\n\n\nHilary Homans\n\n\n\nFeels homogenous concept of civil society this afternoon vs. gender etc. \n\n\n\nmen and women’s relation to civil society as state is v different\n\n\n\nAsked women and men if wld sacrifice freedoms for human security: found that women wld sacrifice none\, men made one \n\n\n\nOther responses\n\n\n\nKaren: Russina nationalist movement combining swastika and Conf flag is kind of global civil society\, looking for representation \n\n\n\nMarieke: worked in Syria where no space but ppl work horizonally e.g. against global company or despite state \n\n\n\nDitte? Will talk about Danish idea of co-citizens\, responsibility towards those who enjoy less rights \n\n\n\n+ in some context violence is civil: locally defined thing \n\n\n\nAnael: law is proxy of civility—but society-centered model of civility as culture? Or formal institutions that can export elsewhere \n\n\n\nEkow: surprised to find model of civil society so deeply constituted by law \n\n\n\nhe feels that great thing is that don’t need structure\, authority; example wld be associative nonvoluntary obligations to each other as academics e.g. reading each other’s papers\n\n\n\nKarin: missing background Viroli wld have given of Aristotelian sociability etc. incl natural law rather than positive \n\n\n\nAndrea: where does the state come from? \n\n\n\nMB diff ways incl people taking over territory\n\n\n\nMatyas: agrees w ND on global civil society…UN creates normative space that sucks in activism > can’t explain ICC etc. that wld not have been possible w/o civil society activism \n\n\n\n+ Norms of civility are universal that allow regulation w those who don’t have think normative ties \n\n\n\n+ w respect to Ekow\, wld deny that positivist: relatedness to autyority e.g. in marking boundaries of society \n\n\n\nAndrea: is cooperation only tactical etc.\, does this not get us into mental states? \n\n\n\n+ question of violence seems to equate GBH— \n\n\n\nReply of day’s speakers\n\n\n\nPhil: ICC major achievement but bc got national governments to support it > nation-states still key; UNDHR wouldn’t be passed today… \n\n\n\n+ also transntional actors such as organised crime\, Catholic Church etc. \n\n\n\n+ LT developed idea of structural violence which Pope accepted but rejected violent means to justify struggle against structural violence \n\n\n\n+ diff kinds of rules of law: depends on who is involved in constructing them [but not precisely rule of law?] \n\n\n\nAjay: problem w way civil is distinguished from political i.e. moral=non-negotiable w/i political field \n\n\n\n+ rarely in working do civil society and law actually balance out each other \n\n\n\n+ need to study points of intersection between law\, civil society etc. how inflected onto each other \n\n\n\nMB no way to see differences btw movements unless look at attitude to fellow members wherher\n\n\n\nJA: wants to see civil society as thicker structure of feeling\, one of which is civility but also criticsm—not just about having good manners \n\n\n\n+not just about states: institutions and their laws precede civil spheres by 1000s of years; utopian vision of civil sphere used to democratise law as well as using lobbying\, elections etc. \n\n\n\nBut global can’t be full civil society since no elections etc.: mainly anarchy\, violence etc. \n\n\n\nTuesday 26th June\n\n\n\nSession 1\n\n\n\nKarin Friedrich “The Consequences of Being Civic: The Concept of Citizen Society in early modern Poland-Lithuania”\n\n\n\n16th century nobleman: \n\n\n\nNobles required faith\, trust and freedom; follows Ciceronian concept of man as free and not easily corrupted by money \n\n\n\nCitizens synonomous with nobles\, who v numerous—20% in some areas \n\n\n\nLegislation is consensual activity\, goal as common good\n\n\n\nPolish citizenship on daily practice: ideal citizen was perfect public orator\, participation in civic life was essence of nobility \n\n\n\nVs. contrast to Hobbes—defines liberty negatively as absence of interference by state \n\n\n\nAnd natural law not absorbed as elsewhere \n\n\n\nFredro: do not call our liberty license because license doesn’t exist where law exists \n\n\n\nPrivileges and liberties \n\n\n\n1431habeas corpus: no nobleman imprisoned without legal processs \n\n\n\n1490 Sejm with two chambers \n\n\n\n1505 no new laws w/o unanimous consent of both chambers \n\n\n\n1578 higher courts of peer elected judges \n\n\n\nRepublic could only be preserved by strong and virtuous civic society \n\n\n\nFortescue 14th century: dominium politicum et regale \n\n\n\nImportant element was extension of noble liberties to non-citizens; once citizens of X district given privileges said that “previously lived like donkeys in the field” \n\n\n\nLater: issue of place of king resolved when agreed 3 estates of king nobility and commoners \n\n\n\n+ movement to extend civic rights to nobles in other nations in commonwealth \n\n\n\n+ sovereignty transferred from monarch to commonwealth\, which gives sense of exception and superiority from rest of Europe where greater monarchic sovereigtny \n\n\n\nFocus on 3 attempts–Jews\, Cossacks and Prussians claim citizenship by practicing it \n\n\n\nPrussian diet sets up and devolved authority; include urban members in their diet \n\n\n\nOrthodox Cossacks: failure of integration into citizenship \n\n\n\nhad tried to attain noble status since defending P-L from Ottomans\, but not trusted to uphold liberties of free republic\, identifying with foreign elements alien to P-L culture;rebellion when appeal to Muscovite Tsar to defend as Orthodox; lost eastern lands to Moscow\n\n\n\nJews signing names as Jews and citizens in one area\, and seems recognised as such\, with recourse to 1558 Law Statute which gives access to law courts \n\n\n\nThen end of 18th century: introduction of property franchise disenfranchises poor noblemen\, reducing political participation\, also with greater influence of natural law \n\n\n\nPower from above vs. power from below often misleading \n\n\n\nJA: power of non-civil spheres has overwhelmed universalistic aspirations of civil sphere; but other times relative autonomy has maintained possibility of justice\n\n\n\nMichael Brown “From Civic to Civil: Civil Society as Enlightenment Category”\n\n\n\nQuestions assumption that healthy democracy connected to healthy civil society \n\n\n\nGellner: given choice btw democracy and civil society\, better civil society \n\n\n\nPutnam:  bc of intellectual inheritance of northern city states\, northern Italy more successful \n\n\n\nSkocol: America’s active traditions have fostered democracy \n\n\n\nLeaving aside issue of activity a la Skinner: need for active engagement w politics \n\n\n\nOrigins of civil (vs civic) society commonly located in 18th century \n\n\n\ne.g. Ferguson 1767—but problematic father figure for this tradition \n\n\n\nAspects of civil society coming into focus 1680-1720 \n\n\n\nCivility: language of politeness in Earl of Shaftersbury as relational virtue—exchange btw individuals: need to temper sensibilities and passionsPublic sphere as locale of these polite conversations and everyone had to be able to participate >link to democracyClubs and societies: participation w/o financial constraints etc.\n\n\n\n…so three different aspects: language\, location\, outcome of shared decision-making—voluntary associations seen as outcome of polite discourse in public sphere \n\n\n\nNot unlike Michael Edwards: civil society as good society/public sphere/associational life \n\n\n\nHowever\, scholars are falsely linking democracy to civil society \n\n\n\nNumerous groups unable to participate: women\, children\, slaves etc.Self-generating\, consciously apolitical\, limited in scopeCivic virtue of active\, positive liberty is different to civil virtue of courtesy etc. conduct of individuals in immediate presence of each other\, sensibilities of others and their idea of be esteemed: virtue of holding back rather than setting forwardNot game of power but of negotiation; regulate discussion of controversial subjects so dialogue doesn’t break down: mediating ontological differences over moral viewpointsReally about moving past wars of religion: point not to share moral outlook but mediating their differences\, neutralising religion as source of social conflictPoint therefore to depoliticize\, repositioning outside the realms of state—no longer state’s concern what you believe\, as long as don’t commit crimes on each other\n\n\n\nCivic society being replaced by civil society in this period: no longer need for active political virtue\, what is now needed is constraint \n\n\n\nFerguson: attack on failure of political activism of contemporaries—he remains part of tradition of civic politics and not of civil societyAlso leads to Smith’s argument that state not to interfere in domains such as marketPreparing ground for secular state as identified by C TaylorCivil society disconnected from state\, removing certain actions from state’s remit: hence failure of Gellner etc. healthy civil society may imply disregard for political democracy\, but akin to big society/small state (shared by Marx on withering away of state; Oakeshott on disintegration of state)\n\n\n\nDiscussion\n\n\n\nAndrea M: Societas in Latin was alliance btw peple e.g. to commit crime\, but also used societas for human species: linkage—man could not live alone \n\n\n\nVs. for Greeks\, animals were social but only humans were political requiring speech and practice… \n\n\n\nRomans bring domain of oikos into public sphere under civitas \n\n\n\nAquinas: combines man as political and social which identifies contemplative\, akin to civility—i.e. sees A’s sociality as akin to civility \n\n\n\nKarin: civility was part of civic virtue in P-LMichael: question is less about how treat each other in club\, but how treat those in other clubs—e.g. in Ireland at time\, civility comes into relations btw Anglicans\, etc.\n\n\n\nJeff: agrees that apolitical aspect that emerging\, but seems positive if don’t think that it by itself should be normative core of political\, a la Putnam: being civil is enough; but Skocpol etc. bring in active virtues in what they call civil\, not old ideas of tolerance\, but to Greek polis\, public as Arendt terms it \n\n\n\nMB explains that opposing welding of active participation in politics w civil activism in neo-Roman work of Skinner\, Pocock etc.: two traditions that lock together and not sure that fit well + not sure that tolrrance about democractic procedures\, instead living in plural society > can be tolerant of ppl w/o giving political privilege: pluralist and democractic virtues are not the same>tolerance is consequence of plural society\, not of democratic society (JA adds that authoritarian societies can be v tolerant)\n\n\n\nAnael: why strictly separating where people meet with goals etc.? civility was thinking like a citizen\, before it became private norms of civility etc. and tody now has become ideals of universalising community\, rather than just private realm \n\n\n\nMB Not that say these ppl to live just like us but that recognize living in plural society\, rather than being about democracy; and no coincidence that this is period when shift from wars of religion to fighting empire > not universalising but actually dealing with difference\n\n\n\nMatyas: to KF\, P-L fascinating experiment though failure\, ended on backfoot against absolutist monarchs; to MB\, can agree w claim that went too far in associating political motives with civility\, but otherwise of story is that civil society is constitutive of modern democracy\, linked with law under constitution > democracy requires participation which requires political ties and only limited possibility of building those ties; alternatives are family\, business collusion\, tribes as in Kenya (whereby election looks like census\, institutionalises rule of one tribe over another) etc. though civil society\, inherently political\, leads to legislative change e.g. Sarah’s Law in Scotland \n\n\n\nKF most absolute monarchies also failed; in terms of political participation yes exclusion but typical of most periods elsewhere; but what important is that large parts of Polish society felt includedMB Matyas argues democracy>participation>ties>social capital\, but ties required not of social capital but of political capital—social capital about pursuit of private good\, while political capital is pursuit of public good\, which is what democractic theorists are anxious to support e.g. chess club generates social capital and not political > not interested in public good\n\n\n\nPhil O Skopcol and Putnam v different but agree that need active citizenry bc people disagree: civility gives you way of relating when disagree \n\n\n\nMB utopian ideal of politics based on social capital is utopian e.g. in Ireland when getting clubs like Orange Order that then become political divisive (PO adds that social capital also made for fascism)\n\n\n\nTamas still point of civil society > changes conditions of legitimacy: tension btw civic and civil between constitutional and liberal elements of democracy > civility tames or moderates the civil virtue [presumably civic=constitutional\, liberal=civil] \n\n\n\nEnligtnemnt thinkers start to generate utopias but tools not in place\n\n\n\nDanielle Counter-culture if by 18th century artistocratic principles of land emerge as principles of government \n\n\n\nBut feeling that in fact this version of liberalism only offers illusions of freedom\, or only little glimpses of it\, while arguably removing freedom in every other way\, a la Foucault \n\n\n\nSession 2\n\n\n\nEkow Yankah “What Civil? What Society? The Borders of Civic Virtue and What We Owe to Others”\n\n\n\nTrevor Stack “Catholic-Scholastic Notions of (Civil) Society in Contemporary West Mexico”\n\n\n\nIntroduction\n\n\n\n1. Focus on “what society?” part of workshop topic \n\n\n\n> which has received less attention in debates on civil society in spite of parallel debates on society \n\n\n\n2. Focus on notion of society that which identified in anthropolo fieldwork in contemp west Mexico \n\n\n\na. which I usually call “loosely scholastic” because developed by medieval Catholic writers such as Aquinas\, not unique to Catholics in contemporary world \n\n\n\n> indeed\, my own discipline of anthropology partakes of them\, as does sociology perhaps especially in French tradition \n\n\n\nb. although in this paper will discuss Catholic church in contemporary Mexico\, which strangely neglected by social and political scientists—tends to treat churches as relics; whereas in fact have crucial \n\n\n\ni. not just in relation to old notion of society but to revamped notion of “civil society” of recent decades\, which Church played decisive role in sponsoring \n\n\n\nii. if time will say something about how revamped “civil society” of recent decades \n\n\n\n3. Loosely ethnographic approach \n\n\n\na. take as starting point particular context \n\n\n\ni. town of 8000 in pine-forest highlands of west Mexico \n\n\n\nii. as such \n\n\n\n–          visited by thousands of weekenders from nearby metropolis of Guadalajara \n\n\n\n–          in fact closely tied into orbit of Guadalajara and broader region \n\n\n\niii. including through structures of church \n\n\n\n> relevant that central-west Mexico famed as region in which church retains much power \n\n\n\nb. my fieldwork has focused on \n\n\n\ni. my informants’ notions of citizenship\, civil society and so on \n\n\n\ne.g. key question: what does it mean to you to be a citizen? \n\n\n\nii. revealing because \n\n\n\n–          what happens locally shaped by those understandings \n\n\n\nfollowed large number of cases\n\n\n\n–          local notions can throw up new theoretical insights \n\n\n\nin this case\, pushed me to reflect on notions of society\n\n\n\nc. although ethnographic – approach not essentially different to other speakers \n\n\n\ne.g. while JA looks to contemporary US for what notions and institutions of the civil\, extrapolating from there\, AG to India\, with unsurprisingly different results \n\n\n\n4. In paper \n\n\n\na. going to trace notions of sociedad \n\n\n\nb. say where come from historically \n\n\n\nc. what does—still struggling somewhat with this \n\n\n\nd. if time something about revamped notion of civil society \n\n\n\n> fairly descriptive paper but hope makes for some discussion \n\n\n\nB. What notions of sociedad\n\n\n\n1. In 2007 interviewed Claudia in 50s\, 3 children\, extended peasant family\, active in church lay organisations\, including cooperative groups\, husband bricklayer: \n\n\n\n+ when asked her my question—what does it mean to be a citizen?—CF began by replying: For me [citizen] means a person who enjoys all of his or her rights and carries out their duties. I don’t agree that you are a citizen when you are 18 years old\, when you have your voting card. I associate citizenship with the rights you have as a person and the duties you have with respect to society. Or the people you live with. \n\n\n\na. As many informants did\, Claudia uses law to set in relief her understanding of citizenship in the eyes of society – it was not legal adulthood or a voting card that made for a citizen. \n\n\n\nb. She stresses rights to a greater degree than most informants—for reasons we will discuss—and immediately followed by referring to duties \n\n\n\nc. what want to emphasize: speaks of duties with respect to society\, which glosses here as “people you live with” \n\n\n\n> “society” is key figure on which focusing \n\n\n\n2. Found in many other interviews and conversations over 18 months of fieldwork that \n\n\n\na. sociedad figures firstly as kind of membership or commitment; an entity to which one contributes or in which one participates\, more or less actively \n\n\n\ne.g. Claudia goes on to say that that a child might not be a citizen in the eyes of the law but might still be one if exercising duties or responsibilities to others: “if a child of seven or eight years old finds out that there is a garbage recycling programme\, which is a benefit for everyone\, and he joins it and starts to promote it\, he is already living as a citizen because he is getting involved in something that is about everyone\, everyone’s well-being\, and he feels the responsibility of collaborating.” \n\n\n\nb. sociedad also figures as subject (or institution) that passes judgement \n\n\n\ni. in this case\, implicit in what Claudia says (and explicit in other informants) is that sociedad can decide whether or not someone is a citizen\, as well as law can \n\n\n\nii. sociedad often disapproves of what people doing \n\n\n\ne.g. protesting in disorderly ways \n\n\n\nc. finally\, sociedad figures as medium or inescapable condition of life itself \n\n\n\n> this sense of “living in society” is what I found most distinctive \n\n\n\ni. found in Anglo interviewees in California talked of “community” which \n\n\n\n– something external to oneself \n\n\n\n– service to it was \n\n\n\nvoluntarymeasured in portions of time and money\n\n\n\nii. by contrast in Mexico: less voluntaristic notion of living in sociedad as condition that only the hermit could escape \n\n\n\n3. This sociedad included but went beyond institutions of law and government \n\n\n\na. obeying law was part of what made for good citizens\, but \n\n\n\ni. just as Claudia like many informants: law defines citizenship as X but ultimately about contributing to society or living in it… \n\n\n\nii. more broadly\, sociedad went beyond and could be at odds with institutions \n\n\n\n> indeed\, judicial institutions often considered inimical to sociedad \n\n\n\nb. government or autoridad was \n\n\n\ni. needed because living in sociedad inevitably produced differences and required organisation (sounding like Rousseau) \n\n\n\nii. for example\, Municipal President expected\, as part of office\, to give audience to citizens and address issues \n\n\n\neven though recently often try to channel issues through govt depts.\n\n\n\niii. at same time\, government always at risk of “losing ground” in sociedad \n\n\n\ne.g. often heard people complain of those who “lose their ground” \n\n\n\ne.g. in general\, politicians dismissed en masse as being terrible citizens \n\n\n\n4. …and as such\, they were examples of individuals shaking loose from sociedad \n\n\n\na. my informants often discussed this in terms of libertad and libertinaje \n\n\n\ni. libertad was the liberty or freedom of free will that makes humans human\, essential to life in sociedad \n\n\n\nii. libertinaje or license was the result of free will going astray\, as it was apt to do\, making sociedad the uneasy\, stressful condition it was considered to be\, whether in the case of: \n\n\n\nreckless driving\,  perhaps the most common examplealmost-inevitable abuse of power through corruption and exploitation\n\n\n\n5. So – \n\n\n\na. sociedad figures as membership\, as judgement and as medium \n\n\n\nb. embraces but goes beyond state institutions\, and can even offer alternative ground to them \n\n\n\n> which hints at where church comes in \n\n\n\nc. concerned to rein in—never successfully—wilful libertinaje that also part of human condition \n\n\n\n> sociedad was matrix in which will was held at bay\, at least \n\n\n\n> before say more about what sociedad does\, say something about… \n\n\n\nC. Where comes from (which also gives clues about something of things it does)\n\n\n\n> still very much sketch: \n\n\n\nSpanish colonists and esp. missionaries took to New World notion of sociedad that they took from scholastics who drew part of it from ancient Greeks and esp. Aristotlein that colonial notion\, sociedad was itself civil and identified with the urban: to quote influential manual of 1647\n\n\n\nAristotle and Cicero themselves defined the city as a perfect congregation of man\, who previously scattered in huts in jungles and forests\, came together\, through which they managed to achieve many desirable ends\, which in sociable and political life are possible\, and is without a doubt much better than solitary life\, as Saint Thomas [Aquinas] teaches us… \n\n\n\nb. no mere political theory but blueprint for empire \n\n\n\ni. native population resettled from the sixteenth century into civilized towns\, which named republics\, although often accused of slipping back out of sociedad into hills… \n\n\n\nii. …especially by Spanish missionaries who had exclusive access to Indian republics\, whose urban layout—literally a matrix—centred on mission and later parish church \n\n\n\n2. Into nineteenth century \n\n\n\na. push from post-independence governments to nationalise sociedad \n\n\n\ni. by trying to create idea of Mexican nation \n\n\n\nii. sweeping away colonial status including official distinctions between Indian and Spanish republics \n\n\n\niii. in 2nd half of century \n\n\n\n–          complaining that  Mexico was still sociedad de sociedades: by sociedades meant especially municipalities that heirs of the old republicas\, which strove to undermine \n\n\n\n–          sometimes use radical liberal language of individual autonomy that would seem to undermine emphasis on sociality \n\n\n\nb. however \n\n\n\ni. limited power to transform \n\n\n\n–          until late 19th century priority was building strong state \n\n\n\n–          church continues to reproduce and uses in polemic against radical liberals \n\n\n\nii. at least in early years\, state itself ends up teaching older notions of sociedad \n\n\n\ne.g. introduces civic catechisms in which man is defined as social being \n\n\n\n3. Mexican Revolution of 1910-17 brings to power regime that \n\n\n\na. introduces unprecedented range of entitlements in Mexican Constitution \n\n\n\nb. mobilises major “cultural revolution” by which Mexicans come to see themselves as mestizos and indeed as Mexican \n\n\n\ni. not least through truly effective network of schools \n\n\n\nii. allowing to contain role of church\, which no longer officially allowed to run schools \n\n\n\nc. retains and vastly expands Civic education of previous century; in spirit of what Matyas—states trying to create normative framework for civil society \n\n\n\ni. sets out basic constitutional rights as Mexicans and\, in some periods\, stresses entitlement as Mexicans to many things that clearly did not have\, which fuelled local struggles \n\n\n\nii. but still has as key chapter\, to present day\, the same “Individual in Society” \n\n\n\n– clearly one source of what my interviewees said \n\n\n\n– but clear from informants: sociedad still not monopoly of state far from it \n\n\n\nD. What figure of sociedad (that contains willful license) does\n\n\n\n> still hard to pin down; not unlike revamped civil society\, depends on how precisely deployed \n\n\n\n1. Can be \n\n\n\na. particularistic and hierarchical \n\n\n\ni. sociedad did often mean town or municipality\, not unlike colonial times \n\n\n\n> never fully nationalised \n\n\n\nii. tacit hierarchies\, for example of city or townfolk over rural\, not unlike colonial times \n\n\n\nb. but also has inclusive and cosmopolitan face \n\n\n\ne.g. considering not only children but committed non-Mexicans to be citizens in the eyes of society \n\n\n\n2. Can motivate sense of duty although not necessarily through collective action \n\n\n\na. inspires a sense of commitment\, just as US volunteerism \n\n\n\nb. but like it\, often consists of personal actions\, e.g. picking up trash \n\n\n\n> maybe that revamped civil society has more to offer \n\n\n\n3. Can expand reach of state institutions although can also offer alternative ground to them \n\n\n\na. govt use of sociedad in Civics textbooks designed to harness sense of sociedad \n\n\n\n> participation was keyword of recent textbooks through 1990s \n\n\n\nb. however: seen that can offer alternatives \n\n\n\ni. which can be oppressive \n\n\n\ne.g. sociedad frowns on disorderly protest \n\n\n\ne.g. groups of highschool pupils: sociedad stigmatizes children of single mothers\, even when law protects them \n\n\n\nii. but can be turned around \n\n\n\ne.g. protestors defend selves in eyes of sociedad when govt tries to use law against them \n\n\n\n4. As alternative\, can provide space for \n\n\n\na. critique of persons or institutions \n\n\n\ne.g. accusing municipal president of shaking loose from sociedad \n\n\n\nb. wholesale dismissal \n\n\n\ni. of institutions and whole sphere of politics \n\n\n\nii. of fellow citizens: often said that \n\n\n\n– drive like animals \n\n\n\n– otherwise unworthy of trust \n\n\n\nc. until recently excepting church \n\n\n\n> though hard hit by sex scandals \n\n\n\n5. Finally \n\n\n\na. although not inconducive to rights > as can see in quote from Claudia \n\n\n\nb. may well be inhospitable for classically liberal Rechtstaat whose raison d’etre is to guarantee basic rights of citizens as individuals \n\n\n\nE. What has to do with revamped “sociedad civil”?\n\n\n\n> chose Claudia because not only does she speak of sociedad but she is part of local group that embodies revamped notions of civil society and citizenship: \n\n\n\n1. Local group of 2-15 members \n\n\n\na. formed in 1990s as Human Rights Group \n\n\n\nb. affiliates in 2000 to newly-formed organisation Citizen Power \n\n\n\ni. government had governed through Institution Revolutionary Party which conglomerate of organisations through which resources were channelled in return for support including votes in one-party elections that worked as plebiscites \n\n\n\nii. from 1970s\, range of organisations excluded converge on goal of creating conditions for victory of opposition parties in elections\, under sign of citizens \n\n\n\n>organised citizenry and civil society were synonomous \n\n\n\niii. since 2000 election\, civil society defined as beyond political parties \n\n\n\n> although CP stages debate between municipal candidates \n\n\n\n2. Subplot: as many or most such organisations\, significant that main sponsor is the Church \n\n\n\na. PC \n\n\n\ni. parish group originally \n\n\n\nii. PC run out of Jesuit Univ and sponsored by LT diocese \n\n\n\nb. Church had \n\n\n\ni. long identified with civil society as sphere of associations that not natural—unlike family—and yet indispensable\, and which retain bulwark against totalitarian state\, whether socialist\, fascist or liberal\, as well as agents of subversion that fought against \n\n\n\nii. faced with weakening of regime and increasing radicality of protest\, seeks to cultivate—not unlike in 1890s—certain kind of organization of which PC is good example \n\n\n\n3. Many varieties of revamped civil society in contemp Mexico but detect trace of sociedad in it \n\n\n\na. Focus on rights but also duty to sociedad \n\n\n\nb. claim of sociedad civil to be independent of state \n\n\n\nE. Conclusions\n\n\n\n1. Looking at notions is revealing of what happens locally but also throws up broader theoretical insights \n\n\n\na. locally \n\n\n\nb. theoretical… \n\n\n\n2. Draws attention to\, among other things \n\n\n\na. institutional contexts for civil society–and including  churches \n\n\n\nb. queries whether contemporary civil society are all that voluntaristic \n\n\n\n3. Normatively\, though\, not to assume that is desirable \n\n\n\n>  I have some sympathy for arguments of those like: \n\n\n\na. Aguilar Rivera: cites lynch mobs etc. as examples of excess of solidarity which shows up how state fails to secure basic rights of citizens \n\n\n\nb. or indeed\, scholars like Turner who place faith in state to which people relate as private citizens and which makes good on their entitlements… \n\n\n\nDiscussion\n\n\n\nHenry: metaphysical basis? Also question about apartment: \n\n\n\nFor Aristotle\, sees as reading empirically out of nature; instead metaethical in that empiricallyInter-connectedness is subverted by market\,\n\n\n\nKarin: liberty vs. license \n\n\n\nWhat is defense against license? Cites Polish noble saying that not just license but liberty is defined in old customary lawCivil vs civic (which Michael argued against) social capital is defence against overbearing state—civil essence of organisations could turn into civic task of defending liberty against overbearing states >otherwise might lose liberty in civil society: so merger of civil and civic is important for civil to pursue liberty\n\n\n\nEkow: liberty of citizen is as citizen—but Millian liberalism takes any trade-off in liberty to be justified e.g. by cost-benefit\, such as in stop light\, but for Aristotle: community may have no choice but to banish people who have put themselves above law—this is terrifying thing \n\n\n\nAjay: discourse on virtue is too moral\, Catholic in nature > takes into realm of intention—intangibility of intention in modern democracy is made good in law; exceptional laws against terrorism etc. worked on basis of intention—link between law and virtue \n\n\n\n+ end up w moral minimum\, even in Kymlicka on multiculturalism—moral minimum for immigrants\, which is standard for civility: link between civility\, morality and legality in notion of social order \n\n\n\nE Resists link btw virtue and law: making distinction between civic virtue and virtue generally>this has been lost from Aristotle: virtue was in his Ethics and not in his Politics\, in which virtue features much less and only in relation to civic obligations: not about being good person—here best person is person who treats others with justiceThere is A justification for law of exception but for those who attack civic polity as such: this is related to intention—whether offending morality as mass murderer or civic polity itself\, though true that v dangerousAgrees danger w moral minimum of civility that excludes that those not civic: short-sighted community can be miserly t/w those who learn to includeAmericans have political rights to treat undoc workers as want\, but that is realm of politics\, though agrees that least attractive part of argument\n\n\n\nPhil O intent is certainly dealt with in law; but also debates about law enforcing morality e.g. addiction\, abortion etc. which brings into play moral values; one thing about Aristotle is that citizens have obligations—qu whether relevant today; if social life etc. doesn’t live up\, incentive to get out there and be more active > imperative for dissonance btw expectations and reality\, less in A’s account; aristocracy and democracy don’t mix \n\n\n\nMy answer: not clear whether sociedad actually motivates people to promote and be more active or dissuades them from itEkow Modern American: rights against the state vs. Aristotelian: rights in return for duties\n\n\n\nEkow religion—freedom of religion wasn’t issue in ancient Athens but yes in Aquinas whereby religion\, civic virtue and law come together > if Catholic\, can punish you but Church should not impose religion on others\, bc those outside church could not be imposed upon as matter of conscience; but how plays out with so much of education etc. controlled by church \n\n\n\nEkow for Aristotle polity can yes be unbalanced but not outright exploitation of one group over another\, even of slaves—are we treating undoc workers worse than slaves? \n\n\n\nTamas if saying diff normative principles apply to citizens and non-citizens\, what dis relation of justice and civic virtue? \n\n\n\nAndrea license can be taken or given—can be granting permission\, freedoms to which entitled i.e. is license taking freedom to which not entitled \n\n\n\nDifferent concepts of freedom: libertad that opposed to libertinaje is more natural freedom of human will\, rather than something to which entitled > freedom as a condition but also as a problemBut yes\, other sense of freedom given in law e.g. free expression\n\n\n\nSession 3\n\n\n\nRaul Acosta “Civil Society as the Aspiration for Orderly Dissent: Differential Attitudes towards Social Movements\, NGOs and Advocacy Networks”\n\n\n\nCivil society can mean orderly dissent but gets polluted by progress as moral improvement \n\n\n\nBrazilian Amazon: protected area of indigen groups \n\n\n\nMeeting btw indig groups w soya export producers mediated by NGO\, intended to force govt to make plan for area before road was paved which wld facilitate trucks and deforestationQuotes one leader “If you have a polarised debate radical elements dominate > need to separate reasonable from unreaonsable people” but also goes on to say that there are differences within NGO\, which are legitimate\, and which can handle itThus trying to bring orderly dissent in arena of civil society\n\n\n\nDissent: Basic disagreements\, taboos\, cultural configuration\, taboos\, conflicts\, social dramas etc. > all are necessary for change \n\n\n\nBook combining social solidarity and anthropological gift: gift entails reciprocity of exchange in relations; division of labor > need to rely on each other\, lifeworld as interconnected experience \n\n\n\nSociality is one option > understand that rights earned through demands and actions—understand that result of previous conflicts: shows perpetual state of becoming\n\n\n\nPublic order: \n\n\n\n1. coercive society: censorship\, restricted rights etc. \n\n\n\n2. self-policiing: democratic authority\, minim policing\, collective rights\, empowerment of individuals \n\n\n\nBook on solidarity: social change through revolution vs. evolution \n\n\n\nRelation btw advocates and activists \n\n\n\nOrganic analogy: society as ecosystem\, sum of organizations in world \n\n\n\nVs. evolution as linear progress \n\n\n\nCivil ecosystems? Links state power configurations to civil society arrangements\n\n\n\nActivism and advocacy \n\n\n\nDmitry Goncharov “Postcommunist Civil Society: Uncivil Limitations and Uncivic Constraints”\n\n\n\nCommunist govt tries to destroy any form of autonomous social or private life \n\n\n\n+ attempt to change culturally by developing utopian collectivism instead of bourgeois individulalism\, which quite successful \n\n\n\nBut also how need to rely on each other just to survive; political patronage etc. > these were solidarity networks but not civil \n\n\n\nAt some point anti-Communists realize this struggle against rule not possible bc of overwhelming power of state\, after Prague Spring \n\n\n\nPitched in terms of repair of solidarity in Communist society but of politics; courage prized as civic \n\n\n\nPostcommunist agenda: to create civil forms of solidarity \n\n\n\nProblem w democratization theory: lack of attention to solidarity beyond “civil society”\, regarded as problem or survival \n\n\n\nAnti-civic civil society: govt does not support anti-civic civil society that challenges image of regime: drawing boundaries between these two—civically versus socially active organisations \n\n\n\nDiscussion\n\n\n\nHenry question \n\n\n\nRaul importance of emotional links that motivate people; rubber tappers and other groups develop in contrast to ciudadania florestania\, which is right to live in forest\, out of modernity\, as opposed to city\n\n\n\nMatyas: 1956 Revolution was socialist\, 1968\, in 1970s arguing for human rights bc argued that same alienation as in West\, only in 1980s becomes transition to Wes; But since then: living under Communism creates distrust of competition\, believe that only fair protection from competition is state\, which creates condition in which civil society cannot flourish; Democracy becomes autocracy of your kind of people \n\n\n\nHilary in 2005 Russian govt starts to close international civil society organisatoins incl. British Council \n\n\n\nStrategy of building authoritarian regimes\n\n\n\nAjay can’t discuss civil society as space of bonhomie > comes about through social configuration of power; priest is civil/moral authority of this kind of centrism\, which Communist state fought with violently with centralisation \n\n\n\nJeff haven’t talked about nation in conference\, complex relation between civil sphere; long tradition of contrasting civic and primordial nationalism… how important that new Russia sees itself as alternative kind of nation? \n\n\n\nAndrey disagrees that attempt to replace uncivil solidarity of Soviet replaced by civil society afterwards\, since various manifestations of civic ideal under Soviets; why did these virtues not travel to post-Soviety? \n\n\n\nPhil O: in Amazon hard to organise bc vulnerability and soy farms so big and so much inequality\, even if extreme form in Russia; how to explain reaction to fires? \n\n\n\nSession 4: Responses and general discussion\n\n\n\nKaren: whose civil? Whose society? \n\n\n\nuniversalizing rhetoric has hidden some of that historye.g. Hedonism I/II commoditised noncivil behaviour in this space\, even if other spaces not permitted\, and not coincidental that in Caribbean; disaster pornMarcus Wood Horrible Gift of Freedom enslavers decide that wrong to do so\, now offer freedom to ppl that previously bought; can pay people who formerly enslaved\, or make apprentices for long time; not experienced as right but offered as gift and slave needs to react in particular way to itGift of civility: wouldn’t want to see civility being introduced as gift\n\n\n\nMarieke: setting up Centre for Civil Society at American Univ of Beirut \n\n\n\nInterested in media even though often said that been privatised; civil society about distrust\, scandal etc. even though in Arab World thought that this is a problemSyria has tried to copy Soviet model and also has strong ties of religion\, tribe\, nepotism etc.PO transitional strong governmentAnael Hezbollah civil society organisationFor Dmitiry Hezb or Hamas are good exa of uncivil structures of solidarity\, but these don’t provide basis for institution building\, universal public efficient institutions of particularistic structures > lessons to be learned about how manage people and enthuse them\n\n\n\nHilary: anxiety about definitions—she was thinking whose law etc. e.g. apartheid South Africa; Chandoke—concept of civil society that everyone agrees is a good thing>must be good thing…asks where are grey areas? Marxian exploitation? When are ppl so excluded that never part of civil society e.g. Roma person who told doesn’t exist bc no ID… but NC civil society what inhabitants make of them> nothing automatically assures victory of democratic projects\, just provides actors w values\, space to battle for democracy \n\n\n\nMichael B: question of publicity\, being in public—privilege of getting access to the public; finds shift in boundaries around private\, and also how private life; state-sponsored fun that he abhors; politics of advocacy needs to be accompanied by politics of privacy\, which is not to be intruded on; what is reach of civil society\, not just state\, into private lives of individuals\, e.g. phone hacking; civil society can corrode \n\n\n\nAnna: main interest is exclusion and inclusion—mainly society versus state being discussed but not society versus nation; NGOization of both civic and civil; social economy; migration—work in Helsinki thinktank taht focusing on legal reforms but found v unproductive \n\n\n\nJames: recently looking at defining civil society—is it the complement of the state? Or replacing? Virtues in relation of civic which seems adjective for state and law; i.e. not in antagonism \n\n\n\nGostav: work on colonial cities—does civil society have concrete spatial terms? And can be multiple civl societies e.g.in urban neighbourhoods in 19th century Indian city where community around neighbourhood w local regulations; when someone insults from other neighbourhoods\, have right to go and beat up person in other neighbourhood upholding honour; who is defining civil society?is there hegemony built into way cs defined? How to work w each other dissent? \n\n\n\nMin: in Nepal support from international community for supporting civil society etc. but organisations had to pay tax on funding from internat organs > becomes business for govt when not paying tax before; millionaires corrupting process; how big advocacy networks \n\n\n\nRamola: not much said on gender but also multiple identities; 44% vote against independence\, conflicting loyalties; asking how impacts on strength of civil society movements; what space is made for women? Strong religious lobby esp Church w Muslim orgniastoins against pro-abortion law which passed last week\, but was division which allowed to \n\n\n\nUlisses: how state and non-state violence impacts activists/advocates? Any perception of state being obliged to protect them? \n\n\n\nCaroline? Just returned from fieldwork in Sierra Leone; found ppl continusly saying that British civilized us—resonances of civil; finds that civil society is tick in box \n\n\n\nAndrea: political is missing—what is political project behind notions of civil society? and whether ends up doing exactly opposite? For him something that affects constituton of society is political \n\n\n\nJeff civil society comes up w decline of communism as utopia—now no conference on socialism; v little empirical theory about civil society; at conference mostly worked w CSI and instead about what not civil society—no one agrees what it is which creates much confusion; but can list things such as non coercive\, etc. but though some dispute role of law\, law is part of it\, as is media; is idea of face to face society from ancient world relevant now? Tendency in empirical discussion to argue that discourse of civil society is crippled by claim to perfection. Wld have to argue that feminist\, ecological movements are all within civil sphere\, on behalf of some of ideals\, pushing on state \n\n\n\nPhil O civil society is ideal in search of reality and there are several ideals which haven’t separated out; Murdoch scandal—legitimacy of system will be confirmed in process of how it works out; civil society also decides what is public and what is private; even Michael agreed that civil society resolved religious conflict which is major political achievement \n\n\n\nEkow liked civility as gift > Aristotle says duty bound to treat others such\, not a gift; even human impulse of belonging can be pathological if end up demonizing others (beating up is mild); immigration is area in US where widespread massive law breaking—that legal obligration is drained of civic virtue; likes barrier btw civic and civil—stg for neighbourhoods\, families\, churches to solve problems\, can’t always be state \n\n\n\nKaren: though believes in emancipator of humans also v sceptical of them; civil society used in context of places that have been messed up for long time\, and v poor states \n\n\n\nMatyas: we agree on structures but not on worth bc our politics is different; civil vs. civic can agree on conceptual level; in case of Roma\, there are many such organisations that have had major successes even if not individuals\, incl through Euro institutions\, courts etc. though is constantly falling short bc not enough solidarity thru racism to tackle problems (Hilary disagrees bc not many in official orgaisations); surprised that v little on human rights which complement \n\n\n\nAjay: there are societies in which people don’t agree that civil society is ideal for them; need to critique category in name of civil society rather than alterantive ways of critiquing e.g. discomfort of notion of populism in Ltin America\, where populism a la Laclau is politics; for some of us civl society full of moralities of exclusion; proble is not with ideas of civil society as stand on own e.g. dialogue but ordering they get into > What is prioritised over what at particular times\, intersections between them e.g. nothing wrong w being civil\, problem is context/ordering; prob not w civic virtue but how gets inflected into law\, how morality gets into law\, how converts into moral minimum>tend to discuss independently of each other rather than looking at how relate to each other \n\n\n\nAlena: \n\n\n\ncivil society supposed to be about change but considered success if nothing changes—conflict can be about maintaining status quoconnection with democracy should not be taken for granted e.g. vibrant civil society in China but not necessarily through democracy\, e.g. critical news reportsin Ghana civil society only used as tool for donor funding; when look at those groups\, would not characterise as such if measured them against the language of civility bc partisan etc.; but still civil in that legitimate through own orders of authorisation\n\n\n\nAndrea: \n\n\n\nMarxist tradition of civil society as domain of struggleCivil society closed and built on boundariesMultitude: spontaneous organisationubuntu—not about inclusion/exclusion\n\n\n\nHenry: \n\n\n\nNGOization/professionalizationCivil society empty of meaning\n\n\n\nHilary: \n\n\n\nUse of civil society by government since 1980s to neutralise protests of 1960s e.g. civil rights\n\n\n\nGostav \n\n\n\nAna Hazare movement in India: those who don’t see movement in terms of civil society\n\n\n\nAndrea: member of society \n\n\n\nJames: what does civil society grow out of? Human society? \n\n\n\nDanielle: is unethical to call group civil society when not called themselves such? Since strong linguistic meaning \n\n\n\nAndrea: civil society used by journalists and academics vs. spontaneity \n\n\n\n+ Liberalism was getting emancipated from church and corporations; but also tradition of spontaneous mobilisation which Hobbes distinguishes from people \n\n\n\nAndrea: both civil society like nation can be counter-hegemonic
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