Charities, trade unions, professional associations, neighbourhood committees, religious foundations, sports clubs, independent media: all of these belong to what political scientists call “civil society.” The term appears constantly in debates about democracy and development, yet its meaning is often vague. This article explains what civil society is, how the concept developed from the eighteenth century to today, what roles it plays, and why scholars disagree about it.
A working definition
Most contemporary definitions describe civil society as the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. It is usually distinguished from three other spheres:
- The family, where relationships are based on kinship rather than voluntary choice.
- The state, which holds authority and the legitimate use of force.
- The market, where activity is driven primarily by profit.
In practice the boundaries are blurred. A cooperative is both an association and an economic actor; a religious foundation may receive state funding. But the core idea is that civil society consists of organisations people join freely in order to pursue common goals.
From Ferguson to Hegel
For early modern writers such as Hobbes and Locke, “civil society” simply meant political society, the condition of living under government as opposed to the state of nature. The concept began to change in the Scottish Enlightenment. In An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), Adam Ferguson described how commercial society develops and warned that the pursuit of private wealth could weaken civic virtue.
G. W. F. Hegel, in his Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820), made the decisive distinction. He placed bürgerliche Gesellschaft, civil society, between the family and the state: a sphere of needs, work, exchange and corporations in which individuals pursue their particular interests. For Hegel, civil society was necessary but insufficient; only the state could reconcile particular interests with the universal good.
Tocqueville and the art of association
The thinker most often associated with civil society today is Alexis de Tocqueville. Travelling through the United States in 1831–32, he was struck by how Americans formed associations for every purpose, from building schools to promoting temperance. In Democracy in America (1835 and 1840) he argued that this “art of association” protected democracy from two dangers: the isolation of individuals and the concentration of power in a centralised state. Associations, he believed, were schools of public life where citizens learned cooperation and self-government.
| Thinker | Key work | View of civil society |
|---|---|---|
| Adam Ferguson | Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) | Civilised, commercial society and the risks to civic virtue |
| G. W. F. Hegel | Philosophy of Right (1820) | Sphere of particular interests between family and state |
| Alexis de Tocqueville | Democracy in America (1835/1840) | Voluntary associations as schools of democracy |
| Antonio Gramsci | Prison Notebooks (1929–35) | Arena where cultural hegemony is built and contested |
| Robert Putnam | Bowling Alone (2000) | Source of social capital and trust |
Gramsci and Putnam: two modern readings
The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci gave civil society a very different meaning. In his Prison Notebooks, he argued that ruling groups maintain power not only through coercion by the state but also through consent organised in civil society: schools, churches, the press and cultural institutions. Civil society is therefore the terrain of “hegemony,” where ideas that make an order seem natural are produced, and also where they can be challenged.
The American political scientist Robert Putnam brought the concept into mainstream political science. In Making Democracy Work (1993) he found that Italian regions with dense networks of associations had more effective regional governments. In Bowling Alone (2000) he warned that participation in community organisations in the United States had declined, eroding “social capital,” the networks and norms of trust that make cooperation easier.
What does civil society do?
- Representation: it gives citizens a voice and channels their interests to decision-makers.
- Service provision: charities, schools and health associations meet social needs.
- Building trust: participation creates social capital and habits of cooperation.
- Socialisation: associations teach civic skills such as deliberation and organisation.
- Accountability: independent organisations and media can monitor public institutions.
A broader historical view
Although the term is European, the reality it describes is much older and wider. Historians of Islamic societies, for example, have studied how institutions such as the waqf (charitable endowment), guilds, Sufi orders and scholarly networks sustained schools, hospitals, water supplies and social welfare for centuries, largely independently of rulers. Studies such as The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies (2002) show that voluntary and religious institutions formed a rich social sphere long before the modern concept existed.
Debates and criticisms
Civil society is not automatically good or democratic. Some associations exclude others or pursue narrow interests; wealthy groups often have more resources to organise than poorer ones. Scholars also debate how independent civil society can be from the state and from international funders. These debates show that civil society is best understood not as a single actor but as a varied field whose effects depend on context.
Conclusion
From Hegel’s sphere of needs to Tocqueville’s art of association and Putnam’s social capital, civil society names the space where people organise themselves beyond family, state and market. Understanding it helps explain how societies build trust, solve common problems and shape public life. To continue, read our article on the state and civil society, our guide What Is the State?, and our piece on Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan.
References
- Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), ed. Fania Oz-Salzberger, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
- G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820), ed. Allen W. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
- Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
- Miriam Hoexter, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt and Nehemia Levtzion (eds.), The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies, Albany: SUNY Press, 2002.
