Author: Shu-Yun Ma.

In recent years the concept of civil society has gained scholarly attention world-wide. It has found numerous advocates in the West, such as John Keane who suggested democratizing European socialism by defending the distinction between civil society and the state; Michael Walzer who proposed synthesizing socialist, capitalist and nationalist ideals under the rubric of civil society; and Daniel Bell, who called for a revival of civil society in the United States as a protection against the expanding state bureaucracies. In 1992 alone, at least three books on the subject appeared. In Eastern Europe, proponents of the civil society concept – like Vaclav Havel, George Konrad and Adam Michnik – have been credited with developing an extremely useful theoretical tool for overthrowing Stalinist authoritarianism. A volume consisting of case studies of seven former or present socialist countries found that the notion of civil society is generally applicable to the study of Communist systems, as long as the influence of different cultures and traditions of individual countries are fully acknowledged. The civil society paradigm, despite its basic European orientation, has also been recognized as applicable to the study of developing countries.