Duality of the idea of civil society as institutionalized societal sphere and as common world of action
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Civil society has usually been mapped as a self-contained ‘third sector,’ yet recent scholarship shows that its boundaries blur and its internal moral grammars are plural. Responding to this impasse, the article advances a dual model that conceives civil society simultaneously as (i) a recognizable institutional sphere whose anchors in law, journalism and voluntary association make democratic solidarity possible, and (ii) a distinct order of worth whose higher common principle is engagement, understood as public-oriented participation that confers equal dignity on diverse ethical claims. The model nests two sequential tests of legitimacy: first, interactions must respect civic procedures of reciprocity, publicity and equal standing; second, within those procedures actors may invoke market, industrial, domestic, fame or inspired grammars, whose compatibility is assessed against the engagement criterion. Incivility – refusal to dignify opponents’ values – marks the moral ‘fall.’ The dual model allows explaining why civil initiatives oscillate between autonomy and interpenetration with state and market, and offers a research agenda for tracking when nested civic tests succeed or fail in an era of populism and ecological crisis.
Source: Journal of Civil Society
Author: Bernard Enjolras
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Norges Forskningsråd
Award: G33154419
OpenAlex ID: W4413092232