Civil Society, the State, and the Limits to Global Civil Society

Brett Bowden

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract

    Just as domestic civil society is widely regarded as serving the greater common good of a national democratic political community, global civil society is also promoted as a vehicle through which a host of humanity's ills may be remedied. This article argues that the pinning of such high hopes on global civil society is mistaken, for its proponents have failed to recognise that global civil society is insufficiently analogous to domestic civil society for it to be a similarly positive force. At the national level, civil society functions in a balanced interdependence with the state. At the global level there is no equivalent of the state to provide the necessary scrutiny and regulation that at the national level prevents constituents of domestic civil society from committing injustices.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)155-178
    JournalGlobal Society
    Volume20
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2006

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