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When commentators with very different political views converge in their dismissal of civil society as of little value for democracy, it is worth looking at what lies behind their consensus. Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment Trust sees the US government as the main hope for democracy, although he is critical of some of its policies (Carothers, 2004). Tariq Ali of New Left Review and a leader of the 1960s movement against the US war in Vietnam sees the US presence in Iraq as a disaster for democracy (Ali, 2002).
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Answer:
Several decades ago, “civil society” was an arcane concept in political theory. Today, it is a term that floods academic, journalistic, and everyday discourse. The concept of civil society was revitalized in the 1980s by the Polish opposition movement and the subsequent wave of democratization around the world. Civil society as an object of study has experienced a veritable explosion, and today, it is commonly applied to very different contexts and continents throughout the world. In the post-Cold War era, in which many countries have embarked on various forms of democratization, civil society has come to be seen as one of the main indicators of that process, as well as an appealing way to frame such research. A vibrant civil society is often seen as a key ingredient for the success of advanced Western countries, as well as a panacea for developing countries elsewhere in the world.
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