Engineering Civil Society

Papers originally presented at a conference and workshop

Goals for the rich: Indispensable for a universal post-2015 agenda

The paper deals with the question of how a fair sharing of costs, responsibilities and opportunities among and within countries can be achieved in formulating and implementing a post-2015 sustainability agenda. Introduction After many years of focusing on the symptoms of extreme poverty with the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, the UN system is finally picking up a universal sustainability agenda, enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals, that address sustainability and causes of poverty and inequality.The Open Working Group of the UN General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals has proposed a list of 17 goals and 169 targets. The consensus outcome of this group, endorsed by the UN General Assembly in September 2014 as the "main basis" of the post-2015 development agenda, goes far beyond the narrow scope of the MDGs. The Millennium Development Goals provided an international framework for the advancement of social development for the poor in the global South with a little help from the rich in the global North. Unlike the Millennium Development Goals, the Post-2015 Agenda with the Sustainable Development Goals as a pivotal building block is intended to be truly universal and global. Sustainable Development Goals will be for everybody, rich countries, countries with emerging economies and poor countries &nbsp

Civil society roles in transition: towards sustainable food?

Civil society organisations (CSOs) are often conspicuously absent in policy discussions and strategic planning about food security and the environmental sustainability of food systems. However, findings from a recent study of UK-based CSOs indicate that these groups make a variety of important contributions towards innovation in both policy and practice. This briefing paper draws attention to the disconnection between the narrowly constrained treatment of CSOs within policy circles, and the broad range of different ways that they actually engage with and influence policy and market conditions. Its purpose is to provoke new ways of thinking about civil society and provide CSOs with a new logic (and evidence) to underpin their efforts to leverage resources. Key messages are as follows: - UK-based CSOs have historically made significant contributions to the innovation trajectories of our food and agriculture systems - In contrast to markets, which tend towards homogeneity and are fuelled by competition, characteristics of civil society that crucially underpin these contributions are diversity and collaboration - Policy ignorance of civil society – its purposes, how it operates and its contributions to the development of agro-food systems – must be addressed, e.g. by incentivising and creating spaces for exchange of ideas and practices between CSOs, policy-makers and academics - Established ways of engaging CSOs in the governance of agro-food systems must be re-thought and more appropriate modes and levels of intervention in and support for civil society must be sough

Civil society in Scotland

The outcome of the 2003 Scottish Parliament elections brings to mind the civil society equivalent of the patients taking over the asylum! 'Taking over' is an exaggeration but there has certainly been a minor invasion of groups who have been more commonly associated with campaigning than legislating. The Greens won seven seats, the far-left Scottish Socialist Party won six, the recently-formed Scottish Senior Citizens' Party gained one as did a campaigner against a local hospital closure. Two independents rejected by their parties also won. The interface between the Executive and the institutions of civil society has settled into a conventional pattern of formal consultation exercises and lobbying. But the Parliament has had a more innovative relationship with developments like the Petitions Committee and the growing number of Cross-Party Groups with non-parliamentary participants. The success of minority parties with strong links to campaigning organisations has also created more fluid boundaries

Transnational social capital: the socio‐spatialities of civil society

Civil society remains a contested concept, but one that is widely embedded in global development processes. Transnationalism within civil society scholarship is often described dichotomously, either through hierarchical dependency relations or as a more amorphous networked global civil society. These two contrasting spatial imaginaries produce very particular ideas about how transnational relations contribute to civil society. Drawing on empirical material from research with civil society organizations in Barbados and Grenada, in this article I contend that civil society groups use forms of transnational social capital in their work. This does not, however, resonate with the horizontal relations associated with grassroots globalization or vertical chains of dependence. These social relations are imbued with power and agency and are entangled in situated historical, geographical and personal contexts. I conclude that the diverse transnational social relations that are part of civil society activity offer hope and possibilities for continued civil society action in these unexpected spatial arrangements

Civil Society Monitoring Report 2012

TUSEV published the first Civil Society Monitoring Report in 2011 in order to more closely observe and evaluate developments in the area of civil society. The purposes of this report are for civil society to be recognized, better understood and bring awareness to challenges faced, as well as portraying developments over the past ten years. We believe that the favorable assessment of the Civil Society Monitoring Report by the representatives of civil society and the various institutions in the international arena is a significant progress. The Civil Society Monitoring Report 2012 presents the developments and achievements in the area of civil society, as well as the shortcomings and difficulties observed in practice within the period of 2011-2012. Also, the report compares findings of this year with the previous year

CIVIL SOCIETY AS A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY: ORGANIZATIONAL BASES OF THE POPULIST COUNTERREVOLUTION IN POLAND. CES Open Forum Series 2019-2020

A distinctive trajectory of civil society transformation in Poland has provided organizational foundations for the cultural and political polarization and facilitated country’s recent turn towards authoritarianism. Developments in Poland suggest that the reigning notion of the inherent virtuousness of civil society, its unquestionably beneficial role in strengthening democracy and assumed liberal preferences of civil society actors need to be reassessed. Consequently, I argue that the particular organizational configuration of civil society, its sectoral composition, normative orientation of its actors and prevailing cleavages can either strengthen or undermine democracy. Since country’s transition to democracy in 1989, Polish civil society has evolved into an organizational form that can be described as “pillarized civil society.” While historically pillarization of civil society was considered to be a peculiar phenomenon in the Low Countries in the XIX century, this form of civil society organization has become increasingly common in contemporary democratic societies with dividing boundaries shaped by identitybased cleavages (religious, ethnic, political). The presence of vertically segmented civil society enables extreme cultural and political polarization and facilitated mobilization of far-right, nationalist and conservative religious movements. In Poland, pillarized civil society affect electoral fortune of liberal parties, provides support for anti-liberal and anti-European policies of the current Polish government dominated by the Law and Justice party as well as defines political conflicts and protest politics