By Marc Davies, Rhodes University, Politics and International
Relations 3
Civil society is a
concept and ‘layer’ of society prevalent in the lexicon and lived experience of
the modern neoliberal order, although it predates this period. It perhaps finds
contemporary meaning in light of the democratic ideals of liberty and equality
thrust most famously into popular discourse during the French Revolution and,
again, finding greater global appeal following the end of the Cold War.
Nevertheless, civil society as a concept and ideal, or set of ideals, remains
one that is contested and challenged on several grounds, including its
potential to act as a ‘scapegoat’ or ‘substitute’ for the shortcomings of the
neoliberal capitalist order and
its exclusivity (Neocosmos, 2011: 377; Chatterjee, 2004: 40). In this essay,
I will attempt to discuss what civil society entails and further discuss some
of its shortcomings conceptually and practically. The corollary of this will be
to consider whether this ‘sphere’ of civil society automatically represents the
will of ‘the people’. The above framework will rely chiefly on Chatterjee’s
argument of civil society as “demographically limited” in Politics of the Governed (Chatterjee, 2004: 39), as well
as reflection on how the twinned concepts of liberalism and capitalism have
produced a largely undemocratic and oppressive project for the poor, one that
civil society – as long as it continues to operate within this ideological
framework - cannot conceptually or practically hope to resolve.
I will ultimately argue that, although some of the
activities of parts of civil society may appear to have ‘beneficial’ functions
or emancipatory possibilities, civil society as a ‘space’ is ultimately disingenuous,
or at times fraudulent, in light of the democratic ideals it claims to embody.
Further, I will argue that it mostly represents the will of an elite and
middle-class stratum given the legal, economic and socio-political context
within which it operates, namely that of neoliberalism and capitalism. I will
then discuss other factors that contribute to civil society being mostly
unrepresentative of the will of the people, including the semiotics of
liberalism and its conception of ‘success’, and the impact of this on discourse
or lived experience in the post-apartheid era. In this I hope to provide a more
holistic account of why civil society is problematic that interrogates beyond a
reductive economistic explanation for its failures.
In South Africa, some of the most pressing
issues confronted in the ‘realm’ of civil society include human rights, press
freedom, rights to education, poverty, LGBTI rights and so on. As it is perhaps most commonly understood in
the context of the democratic state, civil society is idealised as the ‘third
space’ that is separate from the state and the market, a stratum that facilitates
citizen deliberation and participation around numerous concerns, such as those listed above (CivilSoc.org, 2003). It is also popularly, and to an extent
inaccurately, equated directly with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or
non-profit organisations (NPOs) despite these constituting a significant ‘part’
of the activities of civil society. McKeon states that civil society in the
modern period came to “describe the space that opened up between the household,
government and the market place once all-invasive monarchies began to wane, in
which people began to organize to pursue their interests and values” (McKeon, 2009: 50). The
thread between these definitions is that civil society is understood to comprise
of the sphere of citizenry and its institutions external to government and the
market. This sphere, ideally, may possess monitorial, facilitative or
collaborative capacities in various manifestations to achieve certain aims that,
quite problematically, are often popularly imagined as purely ‘altruistic’ in
their modus operandi. I will attempt
to explain below that the idea of civil society as an eclectic ‘third space’
where the voice of the ‘citizenry’ is empowered is largely disingenuous and,
possibly, participates in reinforcing chasms between ‘sections’ of the
population that parts of civil society theoretically aim to close. Neocosmos perhaps understands this chasm
highlighted by Chatterjee through the distinctive terms ‘civil’ and ‘uncivil’
society which I will deliberate on later (Neocosmos, 2011: 374).
It is perhaps fair to argue that civil
society is rooted in paradox which accounts for much of its failures in
representation. Its idealistic aim is to provide a legitimate democratic space
for meaningful interaction of the citizenry that is holistically critical and
beneficial to society. However, this ‘stratum’ operates within a system of liberalism
and capitalism that I will argue, along with many others, is undemocratic at
its core and ironically maintains systemic exclusion – both physically and psychologically - from this stratum of interaction. Making sense of
this regrettable irony, however, requires some analysis of the liberal – and
consequently neoliberal – capitalist order inextricably linked to the ‘twinned
notions’ of freedom and equality within the nation-state (Chatterjee, 2004: 37). Discourse
around these concepts and their limitations within a democratic order saw
contestation over how to reconcile the apparent tension between a communitarian
prescription of property which
emphasises the value of the commune, and a liberal one which emphasises
individualism and hence the ‘moral’ obligation to permit private ownership
(Chatterjee, 2004: 31-32). In the nation-states that morphed into the
collective notion of the ‘West’, liberalism and its policy of property
enclosure on the basis of ‘productive use’, as Locke insisted, flourished and
maintained individual rights and law as integral to a peaceful, ‘democratic’ state (Neocosmos, 2011:
361): one supposedly free from the inimical and violent ‘state of nature’ as
Hobbes theorised it. This framework has evidently permeated modes of
governance and the markets of the West to the extent where the Washington Consensus
succeeded in pushing for growth and liberalisation of the ‘free-market’ in
developing nations and many of the ‘post-colonies’ as well (Neocosmos, 2011:
361). Economic and social ‘shifts’ characteristic of the post-Cold War period are
evidence of the infusion of the neoliberal project in numerous parts of the
world, at least if only to encourage opening markets and privatisation of land
for economic growth. The allure of potential for ‘economic growth’ through
trade, privatisation and deregulation certainly compelled numerous developing
nations ‘into the fold’.
In explaining why this decision was, I
posit, problematic, it may be important to draw attention to what John McMurtry
calls the ‘cancer stage of capitalism’ in which he argues capitalism to have
spawned economic phenomena that have produced toxic results akin to a cancer in
society. He phrases this aptly in saying: “Thus wherever
we observe the ‘victory of global market forces’ after 1980, we observe also
the reduction of species and environmental habitat, of public health indicators, of child nourishment, of universal
education, of productive employment and
of freedom from destitution. This is
a startling generalization. But there are few exceptions to its grim hold,”
(McMurtry, 1999: 256). While this essay is not an attempt to critique
capitalism per se, I nevertheless
hold that McMurtry’s arguments possess much relevance today where ownership of
property and the means of production, to extract from the Marxist lexicon,
continues to produce perpetual relations of inequality on a mass scale – the
proverbial ‘rich get richer’ and the ‘poor get poorer’, or at minimum
inequalities as they have been structured persist. A key difference is that a
lot of the people whom capitalism reductively labels ‘labour inputs’ are now
increasingly located in the ‘Third World’, and often subjected to harsh working
conditions and low remuneration, which is often omitted or rendered a
‘non-event’ by international media and political discourse (Trouillot, 1995: 70-73).
Nevertheless, it is not unconscionable to consider
the process of capitalism to have produced inequalities en masse for most of the world – perhaps withholding most of
the global ‘West’ – and that this has serious implications for the global social and political order.
Ultimately, it seems imperative to locate any meaningful argument around the
concept, position and practice of civil society within this the history of
capital and the manifestation of a largely unequal global context. This, as
will be shown, is integral to explaining the paradoxical nature of civil
society and the chasm between some seemingly often altruistic, philanthropic or
‘democratic’ aims of civil society and its actual practice.
A corollary of the above discussion on private
property as a pillar of capitalism and its creation of mass inequality and
marginalization is to discuss what constitutes a member of civil society in
light of these conditions. Chatterjee succinctly highlights one of the central
criticisms of ‘civil society’ in that it is a concept defined by constitutions
or legislation, in numerous contexts, to include all of society (2004: 38).
It is in this vein where civil society as a concept exhibits idealistic
tendencies that are exceptionally contradictory to the lived reality of many in
numerous ‘democracies’ across the globe. The concept of legal persona in the
context of the ‘political process’, additionally, becomes central to an
argument against civil society representing the ‘will of the people’.
Chatterjee states that this political process is one where, at least ideally, “the organs of the state interact with members
of civil society in their individual capacities or as members of associations”
and then contrasts this with the reality of many people – at least in the case
of India - being only “tenuously… rights-bearing citizens” (Chatterjee, 2004: 38). A fundamental dichotomy between de facto and de jure citizenship is, hence, established within this context of
society governed by constitutional laws and economic principles that legitimise
land enclosure and punishment of trespassing and unpaid occupation of
land.
Similar to India, a large number of
constitutionally-defined ‘citizens’ in South Africa are, in reality, rendered
objects of a project of state welfare that exercises manipulative power and
capacity over those that are unable to cope financially within the state .
Neocosmos reflects on this distinction by Chatterjee between rights-bearing
citizens and the ‘entitlements’ of the remainder of the populace (Neocosmos,
2011: 375). This, as he notes, translates to a tension between the rights of
property (asset) owners and the entitlements of the poor where the former are
consistently prioritised and the latter only realised if the financial and
strategic capacity of government at a given time permits (Neocosmos, 2011:
377). Neocosmos and Chatterjee similarly illuminate the paradox of liberal democracy:
democracy in its purest definition alludes to the ‘power or rule of the people’
where all citizens possess equal rights, however, liberalism protects the
individual rights of property and asset ownership which create disproportionate
rights between those who own, and stay within the realm of legal
ownership of the state, and those who do not who are often destitute and live
on land ‘illegally’. Here the distinction between civil society and political
society is illuminated where the latter is what Chatterjee understands as those who operate
externally to civil society and engage in a more welfarist dialectic with the
state (Chatterjee, 2004: 69). Neocosmos reflects on this distinction and uses the labels
‘civil’ society and ‘uncivil society’ to discuss the apparent dichotomy between
civil society as an ideal of the Western modernising project versus the lived
experience for many on the ground who ‘deviate’ from its norms (Neocosmos,
2011: 374).
What the above illustrates, essentially, is the
tension between democracy as a ‘rule of the people’ and liberalism, or more
appropriately neoliberalism, which has inspired a state project that reduces
the poor to beneficiaries of entitlements rather than rights. Furthermore, the
democratic project of the neoliberal order shifts the modus operandi of democracy from
ideological contestation and political participation to one that is chiefly
technocratic in its reliance on experts, the latter being what Chatterjee calls
‘governmentality’ (2004: 36). This project works towards efficiency in the
provision of services, governance and ‘care’ of the populous which is where a
dialectic between an ‘adult’ government and poor ‘minors’ becomes particularly
patronising and exclusionary.
The paradox in which civil society is rooted is
herein compressed: how can civil society hope to automatically include or
represent the ‘will of the people’ if de facto
exercising of rights requires socio-economic and legal legitimacy which,
within a liberal status quo, systemically excludes a large portion of the
population from ‘citizenship’ - namely the poor owing to its own legal-economic
structure? It is particularly worrying that the basis for exercising or being
afforded certain rights and capabilities is dependent on legal persona that per se is dependent on a situation of
financial capability or at least remaining within the bounds of the law and
prescribed social behaviours. This especially within the context of an arguably
‘cancerous’ capitalism, as McMurtry would perhaps agree, generates stark
inequalities that enable the silent distinction between citizenry and
population to persist, and hence a continued exclusion of mostly the poor from
the ‘stratum’ of civil society (McMurtry, 1999: 255-258).
In short, the paradox of civil society is embedded
in the structures of the neoliberal order for at least two main reasons: the
first is the issue of private property, capitalism and its stratification of
class and ‘value’ in society and how this generates a distinction between
‘citizen’ and ‘population’, and ‘civil’ and ‘uncivil’; the second is how the
neoliberal order’s version of democracy is a technocratic project that
reinforces said chasms but also produces a relationship of dominance on the
part of the state and subservient entitlement on the part of the poor in
particular. This relationship, I argue, is often most visible at the time of
elections where the visage of the ‘vote’ as the citizen’s claim to democratic
participation is emphasised and the actions of government legitimated. This
framework, additionally, proves antithetical to real democratic engagement and participation in the ‘realm’ of
civil society if it is one that is exclusive and, in the case of South Africa
and other nations, “fully agrees to form part of the state political
subjectivity” (Neocosmos, 2009).
An important South African example that illuminates
these challenges is perhaps the Durban-originated shack dwellers’ movement
Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM). AbM is a prominent autonomous organisation that
identifies itself externally to state politics and from the institutionalised
left, saying its aim is primarily to represent the “militant organised poor”
over issues of land, housing and evictions in the country’s largest urban
spaces (Abahlali.org, 2013). This organisation has responded explicitly to the ‘framework’
discussed above, particularly the issue of criminalising the homeless that
reside on land in the city. The tension between the organisation’s aims – which
are often postured as adversarial by government and media – and property law
have been made apparent on numerous occasions since its inception in 2005
(Abahlali.org, 2013).
The Mail&Guardian
reported that on April 28th 2013, the City of Cape Town’s anti-land
invasion unit evicted residents from their ‘informal’ dwelling on empty land,
beating several residents in the process as well as one Abahlali activist, and
subsequently using ‘spin’ on property law to justify the action (Sacks, 2013).
Such antagonistic behaviour towards the organisation is not a new phenomenon
and, I argue, is indicative of the tacit preference of justice for elites which
is characteristic of the neoliberal order and its judicial arms. It is, equally,
also indicative of the order’s attitude towards those that are unable to cope financially
within its system: housing is a right enshrined in section 26 of the South
African constitution (Info.gov.za, 2009), yet when homeless individuals respond
fittingly to this right they are confronted with antagonism rooted in
prioritisation of commercial land value over the rights of people. Instead of
acknowledging this right to housing, government is known to respond with the
perspective that providing adequate housing takes time and cannot happen
overnight, despite the fact that – in the case of Cape Town – this land was
empty and posed no real problems for
the city other than its concern for high-value property and perhaps ‘aesthetic’
value (Sacks, 2013).
The chasm between rights for citizens and
entitlements for ‘the rest’, ‘political society’ or ‘uncivil society’ is
illuminated clearly in the case of AbM. It is important to note, however, that
AbM is an organisation within the
‘realm’ of civil society and does very carefully represent the will of its
people. However, it is also necessary to reflect on the marginalisation of AbM
even as a ‘component’ of civil society – it is subject to antagonism, threats
from government and law enforcement agencies, and often hostile attitudes from
those who own property in urban settings (Sacks, 2013). Based on this, it is
perhaps fair to maintain that civil society remains a space that is largely
reserved for citizens and organisations that adhere to the norms and policies
of the liberal order. AbM, although an organisation within civil society, is
not respected as an entity by the ruling ANC – nor the Cape Town-led Democratic
Alliance – nor does it rely on foreign donations, large businesses or
government like numerous other NGOs, NPOs and other civil society
organisations.
What is established, quite clearly, is a
distinction between individuals and organisations that choose to operate in the
‘shadow’ of state politics and its liberal aims, versus individuals and
organisations whose aims and modus
operandi attempt to challenge the order and are hence deemed criminal or
threatening even if they are substantiated constitutionally. The former, which
include NGOs and NPOs, often receive large funding from mostly Western
governments or organisations and in turn often implement western programmes –
these are generally popular in the perspective of government as they facilitate
working towards its project of efficient ‘service delivery’ and development
(Chatterjee, 2004: 69). The latter lack funding and support because they are
often antithetical to state objectives, challenge the (neo)liberal order and
advocate the rights of all people over the securities of a few.
A second dimension to the topic of civil society in
South Africa that I consider relevant is the social-psychological aspects around political participation and
divisions in society given the conditions established above. McMurtry attempts to discuss the social-psychological
effects of capitalism, namely the maxim of ‘those who work hard win’ as a
social norm vis-à-vis a competitive economic sphere (1999: 255). I argue that
such ideas and expectations that are venerated in the lexicon of capitalism
possess particular consequences for how, and if, South Africans interact across
‘categorical’ lines and, by extension, also for the efficacy of the ‘realm of
citizen interaction and participation’. Concepts like ‘success’,
‘self-investment’, ‘self-improvement’ and ‘financial stability’ all imply a
necessary shift from some state of minority or limited capacity towards
‘betterment’: perhaps a state of self-sufficiency and augmented power. McMurtry
reflects on how this works in saying: “‘We must compete harder’ appeals to a
structure of motivation which is required to accept the global market’s money
sequences at social-psychological level,” (McMurtry, 1999:255). It is perhaps
reasonable to consider this paradigm integral to the naturalising of the ‘rich
versus poor’ dichotomy that is ever-present in South Africa, where wealth is
often believed to have been earned through hard work and betterment where it
has – in significant ways - been inherited through privilege and apartheid
benefit; and where poverty is often believed to be the result of laziness and
lack of effort or capability when it has mostly been structurally formulated
and sustained. I argue that the semiotics of capitalism and liberalism
reinforce this problematic relationship between those in a position of
privilege and those who are not, and further instil a segregating ‘wedge’ in
South African society where they may alternatively be opportunities for social change if there was honest
discourse around the origins and processes of wealth, privilege and rights in
South Africa.
Although a short account of this
social-psychological aspect, I argue that - in conjunction with the systemic
exclusion of liberal economics and law - the semiotics of success, wealth,
poverty and exclusion in South African history creates a wedge that if
addressed with honesty and ingenuity may provide scope for some social change.
Addressing the pathological tendencies within the global neoliberal society
that fetishize successes, capital, and material accumulation may be integral to
reimagining effective democracy in the ‘modern’ era, which is effectively the
purpose of civil society to begin with. At this point, I argue that liberal
democracies are prone to tacitly – and perhaps also explicitly - insist that
whomever does not compete –regardless of whether they are actually able to in
that system – falls out of the system, out of the realm of the ‘successful’ in
the popular imagination, and most importantly out of the legal realm of
citizenship if these people resort to means of survival antithetical to the
law. This is one central legal and social-psychological issue that prevents
civil society from achieving its aim of an all-inclusive sphere of democratic
citizen participation.
A
second component of this social-psychological aspect is that of memory. The effects of apartheid on
political participation and imagination should surely not be considered
something of the past, especially when considering mass mobilisation amongst
black South Africans behind the ANC in the last decades of apartheid.
Consequential to civil society in particular may be the semiotics and discourse
surrounding dissonance towards the ANC as South Africa’s ruling party today in
light of this. Political dissent from the ANC and the tripartite alliance,
given its history as a unified liberation front largely attributed with ending
the system of apartheid, is often viewed with contempt or perhaps betrayal to
the ANC’s expressed ideological standpoint. Political memory may, hence, be
considered partly responsible for enhancing the challenge of creating a
democratic sphere of citizen interaction and participation in that it, perhaps,
works to ensure that political engagement remains along the lines of party
politics. For instance, the activities of a new workers’ union, the Association
of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), was met with hostility by the
alliance’s ‘intellectual’ wing, the South African Communist Party’s secretary
general Blade Nzimande (Tabane,
2013). Nzimande’s claims about AMCU, nevertheless, are not the subject
of any analysis here, but rather the fact that dissidence to the ANC and its
allies is, in certain spaces, rendered somewhat of a taboo. President Zuma’s assertion in 2011 that those who
don’t vote ANC will effectively be abandoned by ‘the ancestors’ (Iol.org.za, 2011) also reflects hostility
towards dissidence from the party, not simply regarding defection to the opposing
Democratic Alliance or smaller parties but seemingly from party politics
altogether as well. This, in turns, poses a particular challenge for a
‘citizens’ democracy’ in that political participation is to a large extent,
quite clearly, is expected to materialise within the realm of electoral events
and party politics. This may exclude other emancipatory possibilities that
challenge the preferred orders of the ruling party and its opposition – the
Democratic Alliance - which are ironically parallel in many ways.
The
intention in reflecting on the impact of memory – and perhaps political
coercion legitimated by this memory – is to highlight in particular how the
history of popular struggle and its attempts to maintain loyalty to the ANC as
a movement may be, in part, inhibiting a true ‘third space’ for real citizen’s democracy. Dr Mkhize, of
Rhodes’ Department of History, echoes this sentiment in arguing that youth, in
particular, usually fit into one of two political spheres in the post-apartheid
era: the first is identification with the perspectives circulated by mass media
and an infatuation for personalised success and ‘branding’ usually saturated
with middle-class and elite youths, while the other is what she terms the ‘mass
populism’ domain which roughly reflects
loyalty to movements like the ANC as well as its alliance members and related
organisations (Mkhize, 2013). She further argues that a ‘third space’
with “emancipatory possibilities” beyond this dichotomy remains small but
possible, encompassing various aspects of community groups and leadership;
volunteering without patronising tendencies often displayed by NGOs, and so on
(Mkhize, 2013). It is this particular sphere, which I agree with Dr Mkhize,
possesses the emancipatory possibilities and qualities of a ‘civil society’
truer to its idealised definition of facilitating a far more widespread kind of
citizenship. Achieving this however, she argues, will require intellectual work
necessary to afford people genuine democratic power where the existing realm of
civil society fails in many respects (Mkhize, 2013).
Using
the above arguments and reflections in this essay, I have hoped to establish
what is essentially a paradox rooted in the concept of civil society
specifically in a (neo)liberal order. Capitalism and neoliberalism, and its
laws and social dynamics often mediated by class and other ‘categories’, have been argued as inhibitory to the
development of a civil society that is truly representative of its democratic
constituency. The example of Abahlali baseMjondolo was utilised to illustrate
the impact socio-economic status and the laws of property and ownership have on
civil society and, hence, why civil society certainly does not automatically
represent the ‘will of the people’. I also
attempted to illustrate that although the structural implementation of
neoliberalism maintains primacy in shaping how people participate or whether
they can participate, that capitalism’s semiotic naturalisation of rich and
poor, and the incidence of often coercive appeal to political memory, can and does inhibit the
creation of a ‘third space’ that is truly representative of the citizenry where
all people participate as equal citizens.
Nevertheless, it has been established that civil
society, although automatically representing the will of some people –
namely the middle-class and elites that benefit from the neoliberal economic
paradigm – is mostly an exclusive playground for political participation and
fails to encompass the actions and deliberations of a large majority of people
in South Africa.
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