Civil society is very much in fashion, being the currency in which the tokens of the 'new governance' are traded. Yet it remains an elusive and ambiguous concept. For those active in social movements, civil society provides an alternative sphere of political contestation to that within the formal political apparatuses of government; for others, such as social change analysts and development theorists, including technocrats and multilateral agencies, civil society has become central to the management of the development process, providing the ..
