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Women's Autonomous Organizations, Civil Society and Democracy: How Women's Agencies Link Their Demands to Politics, From a Comparative Perspective
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2008 APSA Annual Meeting: 31-19“Autonomous Women’s Organizations, Civil Society and Democracy”Mikiko Eto
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Prepared for delivery at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
August 28-31, 2008. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.
31-19 “Women and Politics: Organizing, Gender, Social Movements”
The paper is not completed. Please do not quote it without the author’s permission.
Autonomous Women’s Organizations, Civil Society and Democracy:
How women’s agencies link demands to politics, from a comparative perspective
Mikiko Eto, Hosei University, Tokyo
Introduction
In recent years, civil society has become an attractive element of social science, primarily because civil society has been practically and theoretically revived as the basis for democracy. Walzer
(1995: 8) notes that Western people “have lived in civil society for many years without
knowing it”. Until at least the early 1980s, however, the term “civil society” was less important to political life than any other political institution. Theoretically, civil society had been defined by Hegel’s and Marx’s concepts. Hegel conceptualized it as “a hierarchy of desire” where the personal needs and economic demands of each individual, constituting a layer of inter-dependent relationships, strengthen social cohesion and provide an impetus for socio-economic behaviors in each individual. Hegel therefore interpreted civil society as a realm of economic relationships between individuals. Building on Hegel’s idea, Marx identified civil society as a sphere in which proletariats are exploited by capitalists, resulting in economic inequality. Marx, in other words, emphasized the negative aspects of civil society. This Hegelian-Marxist model of civil society, built into the social sciences as a fundamental perspective, has long been a major premise for social recognition (Chiba 2002: 123).
After the late 1980s, however, the language surrounding “civil society” began to take on a
more positive quality. Increasingly, “civil society” came to designate an important playground of democratization. The shift was caused by the revolutionary activism—such as the expulsion of the corrupt President of the Philippines, the fall of communist regimes in Eastern and Central Europe and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa—of citizens who aimed to transform their countries from ruined regimes to democratic ones. These collective civic activities emerged from civil society and effectively democratized the political status quo—Eastern European scholars invited their Western counterparts to consider what civil society meant in terms of democracy (Walzer 1995: 7-8). Now, many social science scholars believe that the more active a
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2008 APSA Annual Meeting: 31-19
“Autonomous Women’s Organizations, Civil Society and Democracy”
Mikiko Eto
- 1 -
Prepared for delivery at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
August 28-31, 2008. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.
31-19 “Women and Politics: Organizing, Gender, Social Movements”
The paper is not completed. Please do not quote it without the author’s permission.
Autonomous Women’s Organizations, Civil Society and Democracy:
How women’s agencies link demands to politics, from a comparative perspective
Mikiko Eto, Hosei University, Tokyo
Introduction
In recent years, civil society has become an attractive element of social science, primarily
because civil society has been practically and theoretically revived as the basis for democracy.
Walzer
(1995: 8) notes that Western people “have lived in civil society for many years without
knowing it”. Until at least the early 1980s, however, the term “civil society” was less important
to political life than any other political institution. Theoretically, civil society had been defined
by Hegel’s and Marx’s concepts. Hegel conceptualized it as “a hierarchy of desire” where the
personal needs and economic demands of each individual, constituting a layer of inter-
dependent relationships, strengthen social cohesion and provide an impetus for socio-economic
behaviors in each individual. Hegel therefore interpreted civil society as a realm of economic
relationships between individuals. Building on Hegel’s idea, Marx identified civil society as a
sphere in which proletariats are exploited by capitalists, resulting in economic inequality. Marx,
in other words, emphasized the negative aspects of civil society. This Hegelian-Marxist model
of civil society, built into the social sciences as a fundamental perspective, has long been a
major premise for social recognition (Chiba 2002: 123).
After the late 1980s, however, the language surrounding “civil society” began to take on a
more positive quality. Increasingly, “civil society” came to designate an important playground
of democratization. The shift was caused by the revolutionary activism—such as the expulsion
of the corrupt President of the Philippines, the fall of communist regimes in Eastern and Central
Europe and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa—of citizens who aimed to transform their
countries from ruined regimes to democratic ones. These collective civic activities emerged
from civil society and effectively democratized the political status quo—Eastern European
scholars invited their Western counterparts to consider what civil society meant in terms of
democracy (Walzer 1995: 7-8). Now, many social science scholars believe that the more active a
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