Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
Many political thinkers have used the concept of “civil society”, among them were Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, De Tocqueville, Hegel, Marx, and Gramsci. 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, 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.
On Week 10, on the topic of Democratic Decline, we will have Dr. Choong Pui Yee, Associate Professor at University of Malaya, Malaysia, as guest lecturer on the grassroot democratization movements (she has published extensively on the subject, and her work is among the reading resources for this class). Also, on Week 16, tentatively, we will visit the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD), a prominent think-tank, to learn about their activities in promoting democracy in Taiwan and in the region.
能力項目說明
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
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週次 Week |
課程主題 Topic |
課程內容與指定閱讀 Content and Reading Assignment |
教學活動與作業 Teaching Activities and Homework |
學習投入時間 Student workload expectation |
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|
課堂講授 In-class Hours |
課程前後 Outside-of-class Hours |
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|
1 |
Introduction 2/17 |
Syllabus and Course Regulations |
NO HOMEWORK |
3 |
0 |
|
2 |
Democracy and Civil Society 2/24 |
De Tocqueville, Alexis, 2015. Democracy in America-Vol. I. and II. Read Books Ltd. (Vol II, Part 1) – [very short chapters from a classic book] Foley, Michael W. and Bob Edwards, 1998. "Beyond Tocqueville: civil society and social capital in comparative perspective: editors' introduction." American Behavioral Scientist, 5-20. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
3 |
Critiques of Tocquevillian Civil Society 3/3 |
Diamond, Larry, 1994. "Rethinking civil society: Toward democratic consolidation." Journal of democracy 5.3: 4-17. Hedman, Eva-Lotta E, 2001, "Contesting state and civil society: Southeast Asian trajectories." Modern Asian Studies 35.4: 921-951. Kim, Sungmoon. "On Korean dual civil society: Thinking through Tocqueville and Confucius." Contemporary Political Theory 9.4 (2010): 434-457. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
4 |
Social Capital and Civil Society 3/10 |
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. (Ch.6 – Social capital and institutional success) |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
5 |
Social Movement and the State 3/17 |
Bermeo, Nancy G, 2003, Ordinary people in extraordinary times: The citizenry and the breakdown of democracy. Princeton University Press (Ch.1)
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)
|
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
6 |
Civil Society and Democratization in non-Western societies: introduction 3/24 |
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. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
7 |
Civil Society and transition towards formal democracy 3/31 |
Hsiao, Hsin-Huang Michael. "Political liberalization and the farmers’ movement in Taiwan." The Politics of Democratization. Routledge, 2019. 202-218. 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. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
8 |
Civil society, political parties and democratic representation 4/7 |
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. Ufen, Andreas, 2012, "Party systems, critical junctures, and cleavages in Southeast Asia." Asian Survey 52.3: 441-464. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
9 |
Midterm Week 4/14 |
NO CLASS |
NO CLASS |
NO CLASS |
NO CLASS |
|
10 |
Democratic decline and hybridism 4/21
(Guest lecture: Dr. Choong Pui Yee, University of Malaya, Malaysia) |
Choong, Pui Yee, 2016, "Grassroots Democratic Movements' Dependency on New Media in Contemporary Malaysia: Prospects and Limitations." State, Society and Information Technology in Asia. Routledge, 93-108. 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. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
11 |
The Politics of citizenship 4/28 |
Berenschot, Ward, Henk Schulte Nordholt, and Laurens Bakker. "Introduction: citizenship and democratization in postcolonial Southeast Asia." Citizenship and democratization in Southeast Asia. Brill, 2017. 1-28 Ho, Ming-Sho. "Taiwan’s Anti-Nuclear Movement: The Making of a Militant Citizen Movement." Journal of Contemporary Asia 48.3 (2018): 445-464. Vromen, Ariadne, 2017, "Digital citizenship and political engagement." Digital Citizenship and Political Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 9-49. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
12 |
Labor movements and contentious politics 5/5 |
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. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
13 |
Religious civil society 5/12 |
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 |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
14 |
Urban citizenship and environmental justice 5/19 |
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. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
15 |
Gender movement and contentious politics 5/26 |
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. Moreau, Julie, 2017, "Political Science and the Study of LGBT Social Movements in the Global South." LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader 3: 439. |
Weekly Essay |
3 |
3 |
|
16 |
TENTATIVE Study Visit to Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) 6/2 |
Students attend a presentation by a research fellow at TFD and participate in the discussion.
|
NO HOMEWORK |
3 |
0 |
|
17 |
Final Presentation 6/9 |
|
NO HOMEWORK |
3 |
0 |
|
18 |
Conclusion Navigating the role of civil societies in constitutional democracy: boon and bane (Deadline for Final Paper)
6/16 |
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.
|
NO HOMEWORK |
3 |
0 |
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