This volume explores how the idea of civil society has been translated in different cultural contexts and examines its impact on politics worldwide. Comparing and contrasting civil society in Latin America and Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the United States, Africa and South Asia, and the Middle East, the contributors show that there are multiple interpretations of the concept that depend more on the particular political configuration in different parts of the world than on cultural predilections. They also demonstrate that the power of civil society depends less on abstract definitions, and more on the extent to which it is grounded in the context of actual experiences from around the world. This book includes some of the biggest names in the area such as Mary Kaldor, Ronnie Lipschutz and Helmut Anheier.

Part 1: Introduction 1. Exploring Civil Society Internationally Part 2: Setting out the Argument 2. Putting Civil Society in its Place 3. The Problem with Civil Society or Putting Modern European History Back into Contemporary Debate 4. Civil Society in Multilingual Polities 5. In the Church of Civil Society Part 3: Owning the Concept: Latin America and Eastern Europe 6. Civil society in Latin-America: Uncivil, liberal and participatory models 7. Collective Action or Public Participation?: Civil Society and the public sphere in post transition Latin America 8. Civil Society in Eastern Europe: Growth without engagement Part 4: Western Europe and the United States: Rediscovering the concept 9. Civil Society in the United States of America: Prototype or exception? An essay on cultural self-understanding 10. In Paris, the Global Place Is No Longer Saint Germain des Prés: Civil society and the French debate 11. Western Europe: Democratic civil society versus neo-liberalism Part 5: Asia: Rooted or imported? 12. 'Old' and 'New' Civil Societies in Bangladesh 13. Seizing Spaces, Challenging Marginalization and Claiming Voice: New trends in civil society in China 14. Central Asian Fragmented Civil Society: Communal and neo-liberal forms in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan Part 6: Africa: Civil society as neo-colonialism? 15. On the evolution of civil society in Nigeria 16. Civil Society in South Africa 17. Civil Society in West Africa: Between discourse and reality Part 7: The Middle East: Civil society as emancipation? 18. Civil Society in Iran: Past, present and the future 19. Contractions of a Socio-cultural Reflex: Civil society in Turkey 20. Unfulfilled Aspirations: Civil society in Palestine 1993-98 Part 8: The Case for Global Civil Society 21. Globalization and Civil Society 22. Global Civil Society and Global Governmentality