Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
Co-instructed by Dr. Deasy Simandjuntak
In the recent decades there has been a resurgence of interest in civil society, especially in its relations to democracy and democratization. References to civil society have been included in the discussions pertaining to yardsticks of substantive democracy and effective governance, particularly signifying the importance of the need to achieve not only efficiency and order, but also public participation and accountability.
Many political thinkers have used the concept of “civil society”, among them were Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, De Tocqueville, Hegel, Marx, and Gramssci. Yet only since Cohen's and Arato's “Civil Society and Political Theory” (1992) has the academic debate focused on the civil society's role in the promotion of democratic regimes (Dryzek 2016). As a working concept here, following Jan Aart Scholte (2002), we define civil society as a political space where voluntary associations deliberately seek to shape the rules that govern one or the other aspect of social life. “Rules” refer to specific policies, more general norms and deeper social structures. Therefore, civil society actions may target formal directives (such as legislation), informal constructs (such as gender roles) and/or social order. Civil society serves as buffer and intermediary between citizen and the state and accepts the latter as the pertinent domain for political contestation.
This course discusses the role of civil society in influencing the dynamics and substance of democracy and democratization, especially emphasizing the politics of democratic transitions, deepening and decline, particularly in the Global South. While many observers have celebrated the rise of global civic activism as a boon for democracy, others, pointing at the fact that not every civic associations strive towards preserving democratic “freedoms”, have decried it as a bane. The relationship between civil society and democracy has indeed been a subject of major debate, with many scholars contesting the notion that the existence of civil society is a sufficient condition for democracy, especially in the developing world. It has also been criticized for its middle-class bias and blindness to gender inequalities.
The first part of the course, in addition to the elaboration of key concepts, points at the global proliferation of formal and constitutional/electoral democracy, while examining the existence of semi-authoritarian (hybrid) governance and democratic rollbacks. The second part of the course focuses on how civil society activism offers possibilities to reduce the major democratic deficits and support the efforts towards more substantive democratization, examining the role of key actors, agendas and democratic transformation strategies. Based on interdisciplinary literatures, the course is designed to both give an overview and theoretical basis for the topic as well as drawing from cases studies pertaining to the role of civil society in democratization, especially in the developing world. At the end of the course, students will be able to distinguish the analytical and normative references in the concept of civil society, identity and evaluate the relations between civil society and democratization, recognize the role of civil society in various governance styles (i.e. democratic, authoritarian and hybrid forms) in the developing world.
能力項目說明
Criterion
Weekly Schedule
Week 1: Introduction
The syllabus
Ehrenberg, John R, 2017. Civil society: The critical history of an idea. NYU Press.
Week 2: Democracy and Civil Society
De Tocqueville, Alexis, 2015. Democracy in America-Vol. I. and II. Read Books Ltd. (Vol. 1, Part II, Ch.9; Vol II, Part 1, Ch. 1-5, Vol II).
Foley, Michael W. and Bob Edwards, 1998. "Beyond Tocqueville: civil society and social capital in comparative perspective: editors' introduction." American Behavioral Scientist, 5-20.
Week 3: Critiques of Toquevillian Civil Society
Diamond, Larry, 1997. Civil society and the development of democracy. Instituto Juan March de Estudios e Investigaciones (available online).
Diamond, Larry, 1994. "Rethinking civil society: Toward democratic consolidation." Journal of democracy 5.3: 4-17.
Mitchell, Timothy, 1991, "The limits of the state: Beyond statist approaches and their critics." The American political science review: 77-96.
Hedman, Eva-Lotta E, 2001, "Contesting state and civil society: Southeast Asian trajectories." Modern Asian Studies 35.4: 921-951.
Week 4: Social Capital and Civil Society
Edwards, Bob, and Michael W. Foley, 1998 "Civil society and social capital beyond Putnam." American behavioral scientist 42.1: 124-139.
Fukuyama, Francis, 2001. "Social capital, civil society and development." Third world quarterly 22.1: 7-20.
Putnam, Robert D, 1992, Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton university press. (selected chapters)
Week 5: Social Movement and the State
Bermeo, Nancy G, 2003, Ordinary people in extraordinary times: The citizenry and the breakdown of democracy. Princeton University Press (Ch.1 and Ch.2)
Keane, John, 1998, Civil society and the state: New European perspectives. University of Westminster Press. (Ch. “Introduction”)
Linz, Juan J., Juan J. Linz, and Alfred Stepan, 1996, Problems of democratic transition and consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and post-communist Europe. JHU Press (Ch. 1)
Tarrow, Sidney, 2012, Strangers at the gates: movements and states in contentious politics. Cambridge University Press (Ch.1 and Ch.5)
Week 6: Civil Society and Democratization in non-Western societies: introduction
Grugel, Jean, 2003, "Democratization studies: citizenship, globalization and governance." Government and Opposition 38.2: 238-264.
Lewis, David, 2001, Civil society in non-Western contexts: Reflections on the ‘usefulness’ of a concept. No. 13. Centre for civil society, London school of economics and Political Science, 2001.
Stokke, Kristian, 2018, "Democratization in the Global South: From democratic transitions to transformative democratic politics." Geography Compass 12.12.
Week 7: Civil Society and transition towards formal democracy
Carothers, Thomas, 2002, "The end of the transition paradigm." Journal of democracy 13.1 (2002): 5-21.
Diamond, Larry J., 1996, "Is the third wave over?" Journal of democracy 7.3 (1996): 20-37.
Fukuoka, Yuki, 2014, "Debating Indonesia’s Reformasi: Bridging “parallel universes”." Journal of Contemporary Asia 44.3: 540-552.
Schmitter, Philippe C., 2018, "The role of elites in democratization." Journal of Chinese political science 23.1: 33-46.
Stokke, Kristian, and Soe Myint Aung, 2019, "Transition to democracy or hybrid regime? The dynamics and outcomes of democratization in Myanmar." The European Journal of Development Research: 1-20.
Week 8: Civil society, political parties and democratic representation
Candland, Christopher, 2001, "Faith as social capital: Religion and community development in Southern Asia." Social Capital as a Policy Resource. Springer, Boston, MA, 2001. 129-148.
Chandra, Kanchan, 2005, "Ethnic parties and democratic stability." Perspectives on politics (2005): 235-252.
Thompson, Mark R., 2016, "The moral economy of electoralism and the rise of populism in the Philippines and Thailand." Journal of Developing Societies 32.3: 246-269.
Ufen, Andreas, 2012, "Party systems, critical junctures, and cleavages in Southeast Asia." Asian Survey 52.3: 441-464.
Week 9: Democratic rollbacks and the persistence of authoritarianism
Curato, Nicole, 2017, "Flirting with authoritarian fantasies? Rodrigo Duterte and the new terms of Philippine populism." Journal of Contemporary Asia 47.1 (2017): 142-153.
Chacko, Priya, 2018, "The right turn in India: Authoritarianism, populism and neoliberalisation." Journal of Contemporary Asia 48.4: 541-565.
Kongkirati, Prajak, 2018, "Haunted past, uncertain future: the fragile transition to military-guided semi-authoritarianism in Thailand." Southeast Asian Affairs: 363-376.
Morgenbesser, Lee, 2020, The rise of sophisticated authoritarianism in Southeast Asia. Cambridge University Press, (selected chapters).
Week 10: Democratic decline and hybridism
Case, William, 2009, "Low-quality democracy and varied authoritarianism: elites and regimes in Southeast Asia today." The Pacific Review 22.3: 255-269.
Cohen, Hillel Joseph, 2019, "Unconditional aid and ‘hybrid democracy’: The case of Cambodia." Asian Journal of Public Affairs 11.2.
Hoque, Ashraf, and Lucia Michelutti, 2018, "Brushing with organized crime and democracy: the art of making do in South Asia." Journal of Asian Studies 77.4: 991-1011.
Rodan, Garry. Participation without democracy: Containing conflict in Southeast Asia. Cornell University Press, 2018.
Week 11: The Politics of citizenship
Berenschot, Ward, Henk Schulte Nordholt, and Laurens Bakker, 2016, Citizenship and democratization in Southeast Asia. Brill, (selected chapters).
Harris, Anita, 2017, "Young people, politics and citizenship." Routledge Handbook of Youth and Young Adulthood: 295-300.
Stokke, Kristian, 2017, "Politics of citizenship: Towards an analytical framework." Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift-Norwegian Journal of Geography 71.4: 193-207.
Vromen, Ariadne, 2017, "Digital citizenship and political engagement." Digital Citizenship and Political Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 9-49.
Week 12: Labor movements and contentious politics
Caraway, Teri L., and Michele Ford, 2017, "Institutions and collective action in divided labour movements: Evidence from Indonesia." Journal of Industrial Relations 59.4: 444-464.
Lee, Yoonkyung, 2015, "Sky protest: New forms of labour resistance in neo-liberal Korea." Journal of Contemporary Asia 45.3: 443-464.
Pangsapa, Piya, 2015, "When battlefields become marketplaces: Migrant workers and the role of civil society and NGO activism in Thailand." International Migration 53.3: 124-149.
Week 13: Religious civil society
Crippen, Matthew, 2015, "Egypt and the Middle East: democracy, anti-democracy and pragmatic faith." Louis U. Pub. L. Rev. 35 (2015): 281.
Facal, Gabriel, 2020, "Islamic Defenders Front Militia (Front Pembela Islam) and its impact on growing religious intolerance in Indonesia." TRaNS: Trans-Regional and-National Studies of Southeast Asia 8.1: 7-20.
Van Klinken, Gerry, and Su Mon Thazin Aung, 2017, "The contentious politics of anti-Muslim scapegoating in Myanmar." Journal of Contemporary Asia 47.3 (2017): 353-375.
Week 14: Urban citizenship and environmental justice
Fuller, Sara, 2020, "Towards a politics of urban climate responsibility: Insights from Hong Kong and Singapore." Urban Studies 57.7: 1469-1484.
Lemanski, C., 2017, “Unequal citizenship in unequal cities: participatory urban governance in contemporary South Africa”. International Development Planning Review 39: 15-35.
Simpson, Adam, and Mattijs Smits, 2018, "Transitions to energy and climate security in Southeast Asia? Civil society encounters with illiberalism in Thailand and Myanmar." Society & Natural Resources 31.5: 580-598.
Week 15: Gender movement and contentious politics
Brysk, Alison, 2020, "Constructing rights in Taiwan: the feminist factor, democratization, and the quest for global citizenship." The Pacific Review: 1-33
Coetzee, Azille, 2019, "Revisiting citizenship in the South African postcolony: empire, white romance and the (continued) abjection of the black woman." Postcolonial Studies 22.3: 345-361.
Hillman, Ben, 2017, "Increasing women's parliamentary representation in Asia and the Pacific: The Indonesian experience." Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies 4.1: 38-49.
Moreau, Julie, 2017, "Political Science and the Study of LGBT Social Movements in the Global South." LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader 3: 439.
Week 16: Presentation
Week 17: Presentation
Week 18: Conclusion - Navigating the role of civil societies in constitutional democracy: boon and bane.
Sombatpoonsiri, Janjira, 2020, "‘Authoritarian civil society’: How anti-democracy activism shapes Thailand’s autocracy." Journal of Civil Society 16.4: 333-350.
Toepler, Stefan, et al, 2020, "The Changing Space for NGOs: Civil Society in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes." VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 31.4: 649-662.
Evaluations