Civil Society: Definition and Theory

• The widely held thought in ancient Greece was that societies could be characterized according to the character of their political constitution and institutions.
• However, English writers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke contended that society predates the establishment of political authority as an extension of their social contract.
• 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith stated that civil society came from developing an independent commercial order.
• G. W. F. Hegel understood civil society as a non-political society with separate roles for civil and political societies and associations.

• By the 1980s, the importance of the social society as initially envisioned by Adam Smith became popular in political and economic discussions in central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. It became identified with non-state movements that were defying authoritarian regimes.
• During the 1990s, many authors, politicians, and public authorities came to view civil society as a sort of “Swiss Army knife” for fixing the many problems facing developing countries.
• By the end of the 1990s, civil society was seen less as a cure-all.
• Today, civil society theory has assumed a relatively neutral stance.

Civil society remains hard to define as it is deeply complex. Generally, the term suggests how public life should function within and between societies.

Civil society is mainly composed of organisations not associated with the government, such as professional associations, churches, cultural institutions and businesses. They monitor government policies and actions and try to hold government leaders accountable.

However, some political and social scientists have noted that many civil society groups have now obtained a remarkable amount of political influence without having been directly elected.

ivic organizations can be defined as nonprofit community-based companies, clubs, committees, associations, corporations, or authorized representatives of a governmental entity composed of volunteers and which are established mainly to further educational, charitable, religious, cultural, or local economic development purposes. 

It can be hard to distinguish political from nonpolitical civic organizations because many of these groups tend to work in collaboration