Civil Society VS. Political Society

First, I will attempt to explain the concept of civil society and its role in societal transformations.  Then, I will expound upon the experience of the role of civil society in Chiapas.

The concept of civil society was used for the first time by Saint Augustine the in fifth century A.D.  Eight centuries later, Saint Thomas Aquinas gave this concept great relevance in his writings and in the seventeenth century Hobbes and Locke utilized this concept against the State.  In the twentieth century, the great thinker, writer, intellectual and leader of social movements of the left, Anthony Gramsci, was the person who most studied and tried to explain it.  Nonetheless, the conceptualization of Civil Society little by little has suffered great changes.

According to the thinkers, but especially to the thoughts of Gramsci, Civil Society is “where the collective will is formed, the conviction and adhesion of the subaltern classes is organized”  [1] .  That is to say, so that civil society may exist, it is necessary that a political society exists, which is the Government-State, understood as the governmental apparatus that functions with laws and apparatuses of repression (police bodies, army, etc.) and exercises control over mass media, education, and in general the ideology that reproduces and is suited to the system.

That which characterizes the State is that its functioning makes it seek consensus with Civil Society and when it loses it, then it seeks to maintain and advance the established order through coercion, domination and hegemony over society, but at the same time marks the direction of the function of society.

The State seeks to adapt Civil Society to its economic structure, with the direct dominion that expresses itself with the juridical government that legally assures the discipline of those groups that do not give consent actively or passively.

When the State loses the consent of Civil Society, more than anything else it is forced to fall back on force for submission.  The State seeks submission in all of society’s structures – in the economic, political, social, ideological, cultural, educational and the military – on behalf of a dominant class that seeks to guarantee its permanence in the leadership of the State and society.  The leading class elaborates, presents and disseminates a conception for which the State-Government presents itself as the representative of society as a whole.

Then the struggle for power passes through Civil Society, the space where all political battles are delivered.  The hegemony of the governing class is supported in political parties, but passes through diverse channels of Civil Society.  There is an educational role in this process.  There exists a hegemony when the dominant class is also the leader.  This management is exercised through private institutions.  The hegemony leads.  To achieve this, it should pass through Civil Society.

On the other hand, that which characterizes Civil Society, is that it permanently constructs emancipatory proposals of the excluded social classes of the Plans and Projects, of the exercise of State-Government and the dominant class, always integrating the collective will that is springs from the social bases, seeking and strengthening its self-sufficiency.  There are transformations in daily life that, against the prevailing individualism, make possible a solidarity character in the relationships of civil society, that little by little are gaining ground in spaces of society in general, that place in prohibition and question the permanence of the hegemonic class in power.  Therefore, Civil Society seeks a change and transformations in the structures of society in general, but for that it is necessary to show the illegitimacy of the governing class, its lack of consensus and representation of all the interests and needs of diverse sectors of society, then it is necessary to undress the governing, hegemonic class of its undemocratic imposition of control.

What characterizes Civil Society is the implication of pluralism, or multiform; there is a constant internal conflict by and against the hegemony, civil society itself elaborates its own ideology and spreads it, some private organisms try to superimpose themselves over others, etc.

Civil Society as an expression of the plurality of social classes, of diverse nature and characteristics, seeks to build itself as another power and become government from below, to establish an equilibrium of force between government and society, in such a way that government and state represent and govern in accordance with the interests of all social classes and not just one.

For this, it is necessary to understand that when there is a crisis in the equilibrium between society and government, there is also a crisis between Political Society and Civil Society, which occurs because the governing class is saturated, it does not only expand but also separate, not only assimilate new elements, but detach a part of itself or the separated parts are more numerous than those assimilated.  This is a long-term process.  The organic part of this crisis occurs when the great masses no longer accept what they used to believe; when they are creating a break in the relationship between Civil Society and the State.  There is not only resistance to the domination amongst the dominant classes, but Civil Society is configuring itself as a power against hegemony.

This power that Civil Society acquires is not to aspire to power, because in itself Civil Society already is a power, because it predominates in the social, all that which is not the State.  We note that Civil Society and the State do completely different and distinct things.  The particular is located in society, and the State acts as a trustee of power delegated in the search of something that represents all of society in general.

The writer Tourain concludes that Civil Society cannot reduce itself to economic interests, but it is the terrain of all social actors who are oriented by their cultural values and social relationships that are often conflictive.

Proposals and Functions of Civil Society

a) When there exists a democratic country, civil society plays a diverse set of roles and functions, and its importance is hard to exaggerate; if Civil Society does not express itself in its diversity of roles, democracy is precarious or perhaps does not exist.

b) The important and key role of Civil Society is the capacity that it has for the integration of isolated individuals or groups excluded from the social order in general through the offering of roads for social contact, alliances and cohesion.

c) Another important function of Civil Society is to achieve the dispersion of power and protecting individuals, which is achieved through the creation of numerous centers of thought, action and loyalty.  The independence of these associations and organizations separated by the leader of the State-Government, which is the mark of the dispersion of power that Civil Society carries out.  The result of this dispersion of power is that the association of Civil Society has the capacity to protect the individual in significant manners.  The membership that certain organisms of Civil Society, like for example, the human rights NGOs, civil associations, and more recently the organizational expressions in thematic networks, etc., that can act as a psychological, social and economic barrier that interposes between individuals and social or political forces that demand a submission against individual wishes.

d) Another important function of the organisms of Civil Society and NGOs is the Supplementation of Governmental Programs, for example in programs and projects of education, development, social services, housing, communication infrastructure, enterprise, political education and articulation projects, etc., for those places and sectors where the State-Government has excluded certain sectors of society.  Strengthening the structural organizational capacity of certain sectors through projects that parallel those of the State.  It is important to note that NGOs are not representatives of Civil Society, just one of its organized expressions with greater capacity in terms of social relations, economic resources, infrastructure and communication.  The threat for NGOs is how to make all these resources serve Civil Society and not just for the individuals that comprise the group.

e) Another important function of Civil Society is the role of mediation that it plays between the individual, the Family and the Government-State.  Overall this occurs through modern political systems of the masses, where the individuals can feel smaller and incapable of making themselves heard before the great scale of the Modern State.  The opportunity to create labor unions, religious, civil, professional and other associations, provides a context, a modernity and an opportunity to discuss all sorts of public affairs; through these associations, the individuals can make their voices heard in councils of power with greater clarity through political representation.  The important thing is to join individuals and the community together as one.

f) Promote creativity, where threats and intimidation inhibit the exchange of ideas and many of the creative processes are only in private forums and cannot be expressed fully.  Independent creative thought and the associative phenomenon of Civil Society are protective, and it is hoped that creative forces will manifest of their own accord.

h) Civil Society widens exclusive loyalties, since these voluntary associations of distinct nature in civil society that force people outside of themselves and through associative life, incentivizes moral and ethical interest in others and inspires ethical responsibility.  Civil Society has the capacity to contain and soften ethnic and national conflict.

i) Civil Society liberates the individual.  The existence of diverse civil, religious, economic, political, social, cultural, educational, etc., associations, the ability of the individual to choose between points of view, initiatives, courses, workshops, etc., that are developed in Civil Society to seek alternative actions.  The ability to choose is a liberty in itself.

j) Not all organized associations in Civil Society are ethically defensible.  There is no doubt that freedom of association can bring about the creation of groups that can be suspected of being repulsive, or morally indefensible.  There are associations of Civil Society that are the modus vivendi of people or groups of economic or political interest, criminal or drug trafficking, which cheapens, corrupts, and de-legitimizes the true work and interest of Civil Society.  Or in other cases, most recently in the past ten years with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and, in the case of Mexico, in the sizing up of the State-Government, institutions lose the consensus of Civil Society, create organisms with the façade of the State-Government with economic resources that give them the capacity to recuperate political spaces and imposition of plans and projects that benefit the State and the neoliberal system with the support of the political class in power.  For example in Chiapas, at the beginning of the armed conflict in 1994, the government formed the State Council of NGOs as an attempt to co-opt certain organized groups of Civil Society and displace the Coordination of NGOs for Peace (CONAPAZ) that played an important role in the ceasefire on January, 12, 1994.  More recently, the governor Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía constantly utilizes in his discourses the good relationship that he claims to have with Civil Society, and present his government works as the achievements of Civil Society, a false and crooked discourse.  Because if it is true that there are nine organisms of Civil Society (in this case NGOs) that receive government funds through the co-investment project, not all of them do, and they do not represent all NGOs or Civil Society (of course those who receive government funds do not purport representation, but the government capitalizes on this relationship and discourse).

And neither does the “A Better Life” program (a deceptive program that forces those who are in civil resistance to pay for electric energy, where the government says it will pay 50% and consumers owe the other 50%) have the support of Civil Society, there are continually more and more sectors disappointed with the performance of Pablo Salazar’s government and to that we owe the recurrent discourse referring to his good relationship with Civil Society, although he has lost consensus.

k) The role of civil society, in civility and democracy.  The development of civility, the concept and consciousness of being a citizen, goes together with the development of Civil Society, understanding civility as a virtue of Civil Society.  Civility is more than good manners; it is a form of political action that strongly implies that members of the opposition are also members of the same society, that they participate in the same common identity.  The treatment of others with the same civility marks them as members of the same moral universe, such that those who do not do it are excluded.  Democracy within a society benefits when the individuals in whom predominates civility occupy positions of authority, where their civility is visible.  Civility should be in key segments of society, because civility can also be present in society, in a dispersed manner.

l) Organization of Civil Society in Networks: In the last 15 years, distinct sectors of Mexican, continental and international civil society have opted to join together in thematic networks and of diverse interests, like for example, the networks of defense of human rights, of consumers, of women, of ecologists, of democracy, against trade agreements, anti-globalization, free trade, for another world, of organic production, health, education, microenterprise, etc.  Many of these forces seek to unify in large networks of a social movement like the World Social Forum, the European Social Forum, Via Campesina, the Network Against Transgenics, the World Network Against Dams, etc., many of them gaining force because they are bringing together diverse social sectors and constructing alternatives to the neoliberal model.  That which can now be pronounced as Another World is Possible.

[1] Portelli, Hugues. Gramsci y el Bloque Histórico. Ed. Siglo XXI.

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