The paradoxes of civil society

Emerging from recent social and political struggles, the notion of 'civil society' can and should be transformed into a sociological concept on both the theoretical and empirical level. This means going beyond the Marxist and social democratic understandings of civil society as a world of selfish economic interests, on the one hand, and beyond the liberal equation of civil society with legal protections of individual rights, on the other. Civil society should be conceptualized as a realm of solidarity, a 'we-ness' that simultaneously affirms the sanctity of the individual and these individuals' obligations to the collectivity. The solidary sphere, in principle and in practice, can be differentiated not only from markets and states but from such other noncivil spheres as religion, family and science. Yet differentiation does not preclude tension and conflict over boundaries. Civil solidarity is 'compromised' and 'distorted' by these boundary relations, and also by competing, more primordial definitions of community, such as race, language, nation, territory, and ethnicity. While civil society can be identified with 'universal reason' in a philosophical sense, in sociological terms it must be articulated by more concrete and identity-related symbolic constructs. For this reason, sociological approaches to civil society must be tied to cultural sociology, to theories of symbolic codes and narratives.