Civil Society as Idea and Civil Society as Process: The Case of Ghana

The concept of civil society is ubiquitous in debates about democracy in Africa. This article distinguishes civil society as idea from civil society as process. The idea of civil society provides a shared language, which obscures fundamental differences. The process of civil society refers to the complex interactions of historically generated social structures, political issues, personal networks, material incentives, state resources and international linkages. In Ghana, there are continuities in the centralization of national decision-making, reinforced by international agencies, and the mobilisation, demobilisation and selective exclusion of social groups. 'Civil society' is the outcome of the process in which the idea of civil society is discursively constructed and used by donor agencies, international NGOs, the Ghanaian government and Ghanaian social organizations to legitimate their actions.