| This paper presents the beginnings of a theory to illuminate how civil society can be theorized outside of democratic theory. 'Civil society,' taken broadly in light of many conflicting definitions, has been considered a cornerstone of democratization efforts, and has been presented within democratic theory as one key component of a successful democracy. How then, can we account theoretically for gatherings and associations which have many characteristics of 'civil society,' but which occur outside of democratic rule of law and outside of traditional spaces of democratic association? Instead of drawing a definition of 'civil society' which would exclude such gatherings from a genuine civil society, this paper explores why and how civil society gatherings can occur without the usual protections of democracy. Dissident organizations in authoritarian states and cooperatives of various kinds in failed states and war zones, for example, seem to be associations which generate reciprocal civility, despite the lack of democracy surrounding them. To present these associations as a genuine form of civil society, I argue that reciprocal civility is generated through association not merely in light of democratically-oriented goals and actions, but also because of the existential need of reciprocal recognition provided through face to face contact with other people. In addition to contemporary examples, the historical theories of Hegel, Hobbes, and Tocqueville are evoked to show genealogical grounding for this sort of civil society, and to demonstrate how the forms of association which make society more civil through mutual recognition are historically rooted. This formulation allows for a theorization of gatherings in nondemocratic spaces, including a theorization of dissident associations in totalitarian regimes and associations of civil disobedience outside of the rule of law, neither of which can be theorized with formulations of civil society rooted in solely democratic criteria. In discussing contexts outside of the rule of law, a careful distinction is made between 'recognition' and 'mutual recognition' in order to establish criteria for the sort of civility which creates civil society and the sort of recognition which generates incivility to others. The sources for this theory are drawn not only from political theorists. Sociologically-based theories of civil disobedience are included, as are literary writings produced in totalitarian regimes of the past, both to illuminate the self-understanding of those who formed associations in contexts where democracy was only a distant, unrealizable hope. |
