Analyzing the Relationship Between Civil Society and Democracy

This essay examines the crucial role of civil society within a democratic framework. It highlights the active participation of citizens, including NGOs, community groups, and women's organizations, in voicing opinions and grievances to political parties and governments. The paper emphasizes t...Read More

Running head: POLITICAL SCIENCE
POLITICAL SCIENCE
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Author Note

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A civil society can be characterized by the spontaniety and activeness of the citizens,
the participation of the citizens (men and women) in public utility and autonomy, in
voluntary and optional profession, communality and locality as well as laymanship and
professionalism. A civil society is known for the types of citizens it caters to or carries with.
Some examples of civil societies include Non Governmental Organizations, faith based
organizations, community groups, women’s organizations and trade unions. One of the
biggest and most important task of a civil society is to put up the grievances and opinions of
the people of the society to the political parties in power or the government. A sound and
effective civil society will take the matters of the citizens seriously and put the important
issues and matters in front of the government.
It also has to be remembered that at the same time, democracy, which according to
Marx is the first step to socialism, requires a civil society to survive and thrive. A democratic
society gives importance to all its citizens, no matter how significant or trivial they might be
for the nation. A democratic society will always have the tendancy to listen to the opinions
and point of views of its citizens and such actions are more accelerated by the appearance and
presence of a civil society. For instance, after the brutal gang sexual violence of a
paramedical student in India in December 2012, the civil societies that work for the rights of
Indian women and their safety made different campaigns all over India to herald the message
about concerns of women and girls in India to the Indian government. Therefore, the Indian
government, which is considered to be the biggest democracy in the world, had to change
rape laws and made it more draconian and stringent. Therefore, a civil society is important
for and in a democratic state because it builds social capital, trust and shared values that are
transferred into political spheres and help to hold the society together, facilitating an
understanding of the interconnectedness of society and interests within it. A civil society
plays a very important role in building, shaping and executing democracy in a society

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(Heywood 2013). A civil society is a part of the politics of the nation and therefore, the issues
in nation is direcrly affected by the issues of the civil society. Many theorists believe that in
the nations of liberal democracies, a vigorious participation of civil society is important to
make the nation completely and holistically democratic (Harrison, Little and Lock, 2015).
On the other hand, many theorists argue that civil societies sometimes keep
themselves alienated from the political sphere. Theorists believe that civil societies should
also learn to balance the power of state in order to make the state bureaucracies and
governments accountable for their policies and actions. A civil society contains
heterogeneous political voices with multiple opinions, point of views and grievances and it is
the work of both the government as well as the civil societies to make the structure of civil
societies more procedural, rule bound with formal political institutions and establishments.
Even though civil society has seperated itself from the bigger and deeper political milieau,
however, it has become an interesting part of discussion and discourse in case of democracies
in the society. Civil societies always promises its citizens a civil- cosmopolitan reform in the
society which should be accelerated and catalyzed by the democratic government which is
made for all the citizens without any discrimination (Hirst 2013). Many organizations that are
a part of civil society recieve international fund from various organizations and businesses,
private and public. The main objective of different civil societies in a democracy is to achieve
the fundamental goal of democracy. The different social movements that are rooted to civil
society brings out the defect of the democracies and tell the governments to rectify the flaws,
but the civil societies themselves remain alienated from the political processes and
procedures of the nation state where they function (Bernauer, Böhmelt and Koubi 2013).
Such uniqueness of the civil societies have made them differentiate from the political
arena but at the same time, democracies also cannot do without proper civil societies working
in the nation states. Civil societies are the reflections of the conditions and capabilities of the

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citizens and citizens are the most important aspect in a democracy. It is because democracy is
by the people, for the people and of the people. So, in a nation state, civil societies and
democracies are interlinked with each other.

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References:
Bernauer, T., Böhmelt, T. and Koubi, V., 2013. Is there a democracy–civil society paradox in
global environmental governance?. Global Environmental Politics, 13(1), pp.88-107.
Harrison, L., Little, A. and Lock, E., 2015. Politics: the key concepts. Routledge.
Heywood, A., 2013. Politics. 4. udg. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillen.
Hirst, P., 2013. From statism to pluralism: Democracy, civil society and global politics.
Routledge.