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Issue No. 23               July 22-28,  2001                    Quezon City, Philippines

The Failure Of ‘Civil Society’ 

In the Philippine media, NGO circles, academe and other sectors, “civil society” has been a catchphrase used often in reference to the web of organizations that were instrumental in the ouster of disgraced president Joseph Estrada. Adding to the confusion, reformist and rightist groups have been lumped together with groups and movements with strong ideological persuasions, which is far off from the classical and modern definitions of civil society. There is therefore a need to untangle the mess that the careless use of the catchphrase has wrought if only to repair the damage done on the militant groups whose historical role in the Philippine social movement has been more penetrating and sterling than what civil society purports to be.

By Edmundo Santuario III
Bulatlat.com

Militant groups, or those identified with the national democratic (ND) movement, will march on Congress on July 23 when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivers her first State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA). The protest march – which, among others, will demand an immediate minimum wage increase and a stop to oil price hikes – will dramatize the militants’ strong disappointment with Arroyo over her inability to institute the meaningful social, economic and political reforms she promised.

While once again the ND groups will be registering their sound and fury in this year’s SONA – exactly six months after they helped oust discredited president Estrada and install Arroyo as president – not a whimper is being heard from the so-called “civil society” groups. Protests are once again reverberating nationwide among the ranks of the national democratic movement in the face of the recent oil price hikes, the signing into law of the Power Reform Act and government refusal to implement an immediate minimum wage increase. But there is a wall of silence from “civil society,” that strand of social action represented by members of Kompil II which forged a tactical alliance with the NDs in the epochal People Power 2.

One possible reason is because the nascent “civil society” is now part of the Arroyo administration, its leaders having been appointed to some cabinet positions while others are occupying seats in some government or quasi-government agencies. Others, who also like to name themselves as part of “civil society,” never got to be appointed and now believe that Arroyo has squandered the gains of Edsa Dos except that they don’t seem to agree on what to do next.

There are also sentiments to preserve the unity achieved in People Power 2 but on what form this would take is yet to be hammered out considering new fundamental differences on how to view the Arroyo administration. Some plan to put up a political party that would bring together all the sectors and income groups that participated in Edsa Dos but – again – foiled by the diversity of ideological colors.

In the meantime, time flies, the burning issues of the day demand an immediate response and only the NDs are responding. Where are the “civil society” groups?

Stripped of the claims and self-representations by many groups, there appears to be no “civil society” in the Philippines in the sense that it refers to any particular cohesive network of pressure groups. The term “civil society” came into the fore when it was first used in the country during the Ramos years by individuals calling themselves “popular democrats” or popdems. The popdems were former NDs who, wanting to “broaden” the national democratic movement, sought to strike out its class struggle content and socialist perspective by mechanically blending the interests of all sectors of society (regardless of whether they come from the exploitative rich or oppressed poor) with the aim of bringing about “meaningful reforms.” Some of their key figures eventually joined the state and became bureaucrats, this time calling for a state-NGO partnership in governance.

Catching fire

Soon the term caught fire when it was adopted by social democrats and other ideological shades. Today, it is now likewise being claimed by civic clubs, groups of rightist military elements, politico-religious organizations, some legislators and others. Even in the media in recent months, the term has been used misleadingly with the NDs being lumped with “civil society” practitioners.

“Civil society” has been used carelessly by many groups even as they remain unaware of its conceptual beginnings and the fact that it has failed in countries where it was once considered an attractive political alternative.

“Civil society” traces its roots to classical political theory, notably from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and the work of 18^th century “Scottish moralists” such as Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and Francis Hutcheson. Tocqueville, for instance, defined civil society in terms of social associations cutting across class relations, including neighborhood groups, networks of mutual aid and local structures providing collective service. The aim was to foster civility among citizens in a democratic society.

The modern version, as amplified by Jacek Kuron and Adam Michnik in the Polish resistance of the ‘80s, seeks to embody the values and interests of social autonomy in the face of the threats of the modern state. In other versions, it is anti-statist and anti-modernist in the light of the pro-capitalist state’s tendency to destroy social values and harmonious community relations. Civil society, therefore, is seen as a “counterweight to the state.”

Eastern Europe

The antagonism between civil society and state marked its dramatic return in Poland in the mid-‘80s with the advent of the workers’ Solidarity in the era of Soviet modern revisionism in Eastern Europe. Rather than launching a revolution to respond to what they believed were failures of “socialism,” however, civil society leaders sought structural reform through organized pressure from below. But the pressure was to come from a plurality of independent groups that coalesced under Solidarity.

Disorder soon caught up with the civil society groups over whether the autonomy which they represented would be preserved once they took over the state, considering too, every state’s tendency to demobilize social forces in its attempt to achieve political governance. Civil society also championed the call for economic individualism and freedoms of property – the very same fabric of capitalist society which the classic civil society doctrine disdains.

In France, civil society theorists distrusted capitalism as totalitarian but also distanced themselves from the Left whose links to Soviet revisionism they saw as deeply connected to the totalitarian state. They then sought to reorient civil and political society by relocating the locus of democratization from the state to society which is represented by apolitical forms of solidarity, interaction and group life. They also called for the founding of non-ideological political parties.

Like their Polish counterpart, the French theorists notably Rosanvallon found a reconciliation with both the bureaucratic state and the capitalist class in a bid to win concessions for civil society: with the first, reducing economic demands in exchange for autonomy; the second, rationalizing capital in exchange for self-management and free time.

In Latin America, the long period of dictatorial rule in many countries gave rise to mass mobilizations and popular upsurge and, later, the birth of civil society movements. In the drive for “democratization,” civil society turned to political society, i.e., civil society groups became organized political parties. The result of this radical departure from the European version of civil society was to devalue movements and associations by political parties.

Just the same, as political parties shunned any revolutionary approach to achieving democratization, it was unavoidable for them to enter into the process of negotiation, bargaining and compromise with the authoritarian rulers, first through elections, then to post-election state reorganization. Civil society theorist Cardoso proposed the conjunction of civil society self-organization and an acceptable albeit reformed state. This reconciliation saved most of the dictators and torturers of Latin America from the gallows. No thanks to civil society, no structural change has taken place in most of Latin America.

United States

Robert D. Putnam, who formulated the recent version of civil society as gleaned from the civil society praxis in the United States and Italy, emphasizes the importance of horizontal networks of civil associations as a counterweight to the state. These networks which sustain cooperation and “civic engagement” that cut across class cleavages include choral societies and bowling leagues.

Because he envisions civil society as being “nonpartisan” and not “polarized” to retain its pluralist character, Putnam does not welcome the participation of social movements, non-profit organizations and most of all, political parties. Civil society groups, he says, must bridge social and political divisions and remain autonomous from political forces.

Critics of Putnam point out that civic engagement is essentially a political act, advances a political or even ideological cause and eventually sharpens social cleavages. They also remind him that in fact, most triumphant social transformations have been the product of ideologically-driven political parties and social movements. Another thing, Putnam’s postulate may not simply work in a state of repression and tyranny where citizens will have to raise their struggles to the supreme political act – that of a revolution.

Recent accounts reveal the fact that the “civil society” democratization that emerged in Eastern Europe was not simply the inevitable result of the historic flaws of modern revisionism but was also fanned and secretly backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and conservative institutions and foundations in the United States. Huge funds were funneled to several Eastern European media groups and NGOs operating in the guise of “democratization” in order to accelerate the disintegration of governments and their economic and social infrastructures. The United States’ long-drawn and archaic “policy of containment” in the cold war era called for a combination of arms superiority, military encirclement, economic aggression, the launching of covert and overt operations and support for anti-socialist campaigns in order to undermine the credibility of socialist states thus leading to their fall.

In Latin American, the civil society-initiated “democratization” movement was also supported as a “third way” to replace the long era of authoritarian rule in many countries particularly Chile and Argentina. This had to be done as dictatorial regimes, which had long enjoyed strong U.S. support became America’s liability and their stay in power only fueled liberationist movements and Maoist-inspired armed struggles. In order to thwart the growth of liberationist movements, the United States government promoted the policy of reconciliation with authoritarian regimes, the institution of bourgeois elections as well as symbolic political and economic reforms. In the end, the civil society option failed to address the institutional roots of political and social unrest even as the return of authoritarian rule remains in the shadow today.

Influences

In the Philippines, some civil society groups embody the influence of the European, Latin American and American experiences although not in the sharpest interpretations that their foreign counterparts have so far crafted. This is especially so in the case of the now-moribund popdems’ “pluralist” concept and the social democrats’ reformism and moderation. What is crystallized in both political shades is an abhorrence to any form of class struggle as well as a counter-revolutionary stance.

In the tradition of developing a diversity of interpretations and tendencies in the entire civil society movement where “non-partisanship” and “apolitical” tendencies are strong, both Philippine groups sow further confusion by their highly-partisan, elitist and anti-ND biases.

Actually, they continue to journey into the level of compromise and opportunism by opting to join state bureaucracies in the guise of instituting reform from within. They have done so since the regimes of Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and, now, the Macapagal-Arroyo. And so far, they only became part of elitist and repressive policies that have aggravated the country’s economic and political crises and oppression – the same conditions that both classical and modern civil society purports to eliminate.

In the current stage of modern globalization, such institutions as the International Monetary Bank, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, various American and European Union foundations and funding agencies – the same institutions that have presided over the social and economic agonies of the poor countries of the world – are now actively promoting civil society. Promotion and funding support sometimes comes in terms of “people empowerment,” “legislative intervention,” “democratization,” “environment,” “socio-economic amelioration” and “anti-corruption watchdog” projects. Particularly in countries where an upsurge of social unrest has risen such as in the Philippines, civil society is actively bannered not necessarily as an antidote to poverty, corruption or as a vehicle for democratization but to steer grassroots organizations away from the radical influence of political organizations and movements calling for comprehensive revolutionary reforms.

Civil society, in sum, is just a nuisance to the wheels of history. Bulatlat.com

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