Journal•ISSN: 1744-8689
Journal of Civil Society
Taylor & Francis
About: Journal of Civil Society is an academic journal published by Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Civil society & Politics. It has an ISSN identifier of 1744-8689. Over the lifetime, 422 publications have been published receiving 6336 citations. The journal is also known as: JCS.
Topics: Civil society, Politics, Democracy, Social movement, Civic engagement
Papers published on a yearly basis
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TL;DR: The authors showed that elite-challenging action reflects social capital, even though this is a specific form of it: an emancipative form typical of self-assertive publics.
Abstract: Despite a great variety of theoretical approaches, empirical analyses of social capital are surprisingly similar. Virtually all of them treat membership in voluntary associations as the chief indicator of community involvement while neglecting another form of community involvement: participation in elite-challenging actions. Likewise, authors readily attribute manifold civic benefits to associational life, while hesitating to attribute such benefits to elite-challenging activity. We question these views on two grounds. Firstly, we argue that elite-challenging action reflects social capital, even though this is a specific form of it: an emancipative form typical of self-assertive publics. Secondly, we use data from the Value Surveys to demonstrate that elite-challenging action is linked with greater civic benefits, at both the individual and societal level, than is membership in voluntary associations. This finding confirms the concept of human development, which suggests that emancipative forms o...
201 citations
TL;DR: The European Commission's new governance strategy, which was launched at the beginning of the century, varies according to normative standards set by different theories of democracy on the one hand and to the confidence in the malleability of society on the other as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: European integration has added an extra dimension to the perceived crisis of contemporary democracy. Many observers argue that the allocation of decision-making powers beyond the nation state bears the risk of hollowing out the institutional mechanisms of democratic accountability. In EU governance, the Commission has emerged as a particularly active and imaginative actor promoting EU–society relations, and it has done so with the explicit desire to improve the democratic legitimacy of the EU. However, assumptions concerning the societal prerequisites of a working democracy differ with the normative theory of democracy employed. Therefore, expectations concerning the beneficial effect of institutional reforms such as the European Commission's new governance strategy, which was launched at the beginning of the century, vary according to normative standards set by different theories of democracy on the one hand and to the confidence in the malleability of society on the other. Our contribution seek...
157 citations
TL;DR: Li et al. as mentioned in this paper found that Chinese NGOs are often more interested in building alliances with state agencies and actors than in autonomy from the government, and proposed a third way: an approach based on organizational analysis.
Abstract: In the last two decades, the People's Republic of China has witnessed an explosion of NGOs. What will the implications be for state–society relations? This article, drawing upon research conducted at seven Chinese NGOs, critiques two approaches to analysing this problem: the civil society framework and the privatization perspective. It then proffers a third way: an approach based on organizational analysis. Both the civil society and privatization perspectives assume a zero-sum game between a monolithic state and NGOs/citizens. Yet empirical evidence reveals that Chinese NGOs are often much more interested in building alliances with state agencies and actors than in autonomy from the government. From an organizational perspective, this makes sense. As organizations, both NGOs and state agencies need to ensure a constant supply of necessary resources for the firm to survive, and their strategies for achieving this goal will be constrained by their actors' own institutional experiences and the cultural fram...
148 citations
TL;DR: This article used qualitative methods to analyse data from villages in Tamil Nadu, India following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, demonstrating that high levels of social capital simultaneously provided strong benefits and equally strong negative externalities, especially to those already on the periphery of society.
Abstract: Much research has implied that social capital functions as an unqualified ‘public good’, enhancing governance, economic performance, and quality-of-life. Scholars of disaster have extended this concept to posit that social capital provides non-excludable benefits to whole communities after major crises. Using qualitative methods to analyse data from villages in Tamil Nadu, India following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, this article demonstrates that high levels of social capital simultaneously provided strong benefits and equally strong negative externalities, especially to those already on the periphery of society. In these villages, high levels of social capital reduced barriers to collective action for members of the uur panchayats (hamlet councils) and parish councils, speeding up their recovery and connecting them to aid organizations, but at the same time reinforced obstacles to recovery for women, Dalits, migrants, and Muslims. These localized findings have important implications for academic studi...
145 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an overview of current understandings in the study of political and civic engagement and participation, drawing in particular on innovations which have emerged from the Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP) project.
Abstract: This article presents an overview of current understandings in the study of political and civic engagement and participation, drawing in particular on innovations which have emerged from the Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP) project. For the purposes of the article, ‘engagement’ is defined as having an interest in, paying attention to, or having knowledge, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, or feelings about either political or civic matters, whereas ‘participation’ is defined in terms of political and civic participatory behaviours. The different forms that political and civic engagement and participation can take are outlined, and the factors that are related to different patterns of engagement and participation are reviewed. These factors operate at different levels, and include distal macro contextual factors, demographic factors, proximal social factors, and endogenous psychological factors. An integrative model covering all four levels of factors is outlined. So...
140 citations