OPINION

It has been the argument of liberalism and western orientated political thinking that global developments in support of democratisation is integrally related to the rise of the civil society.

In fact some of the major proponents of the liberal thesis go to the extent of defining democracy on the basis of four elements - commitment on the part of political elite to the ideology of democracy, the presence of democratic institutions, the presence of a developed civil society and whether societal cultures favours the adoption of values, norms and ideas that might sustain democracy.

In the Malaysian context, and over the last one decade or so, arguments in support of the democratisation process have invariably invoked the civil society as the main defining element of democracy.

In fact, it is expected that the civil society with the presence of a number of non-governmental organisations will function in a manner that will in the long run reduce or dilute the overwhelming powers of the state so as to provide space for the democratic participation of citizens.

This kind of popular thinking is very much based on the idea that society contains three major segments and that civil society is a segment that is sandwiched between the state and the private sector.

Furthermore, this sandwiched sector is quite independent of the state and the private sector since its motivations are basically public rather than private in orientation. It is expected that since the civil society has altruistic objectives, it will play a significant part in the democratisation process by challenging and reducing the authoritarian powers of the state.

Competing forces

The above liberal and popular definition of civil society has number of problems. First, to argue that civil society is a segment that is neutral and has public interest in mind is to ignore the ideological and political contents of this particular segment.

More precisely, such a definition completely misses the point of how civil society has been politicised to a considerable extent and how it serves the state in myriad ways, mainly in the realm of legitimation.

Second, civil society cannot be defined as a segment of society that favours democratization; in fact, it is a segment or arena of society where there is much contestation of ideas, norms and values. Under normal circumstances, it can be expected that civil societies in most countries would favour the regime in power than those who want to reduce the powers of the political regime.

Third, it is epistemologically wrong to say that civil society and the state function in diametrically opposite ways. In fact, civil society is merely an arena where different political and ideological forces compete so as to build and sustain their ideological preferences.

In Malaysia, not all non-governmental organizations, members of civil society, function in a manner to oppose the policies and directives of the state. There are many of these organisations that oppose the state in accordance with their political objectives, but there are also many that support the state both directly and indirectly.

The very fact that the state has managed to impose its own method of political governance for the last four decades or so really tells us that civil society in Malaysia has to a large extent been incorporated by the state for the purposes of ideological legtimation.

And that opposition from non-governmental organisations has not been very effective in stalling the entire process of state legitimation.

Control imposition

Therefore the liberal definition of civil society prevents the examining and analysing of civil society in realistic terms. Rather than considering the civil society as a segment that seeks to reduce and dilute the powers of the state, we should instead see civil society as a segment of society that is full of contradictions.

These contradictions stem from the fact that there are clash of ideas and ideologies emanating from different political forces. These include those coming from the political elite, members of the opposition, non-governmental organisations and others.

In this respect, whichever force is able to impose its ideas, values and norms in the civil society actually controls the ideological legtimation of the society as a whole. This imposition of control in the civil society is often called political hegemony, a variable that is crucial in explaining why capitalist societies do not crumble under the weight of their own contradictions.

Democratic change does not simply emanate from the fact that the mere presence of civil society in the liberal sense will provide conditions for this change. Liberal perspective on change, democratisation and others do not provide much clues on the real nature of civil society and why civil society might not be exclusively in the control of the forces who want change and who oppose the policies of authoritarian regimes.

In fact, there is ample empirical evidence to indicate that civil society in most societies, especially in Third World situations, function to a large extent on behest of those who control and manage political power.

Political solution

Only when we think and act from the perspective that civil society is an arena of political contestation between those who favour and those who oppose the status-quo that we can fully understand what has to be done.

In the final analysis, the battle in the arena of civil society is really a battle against the political hegemony of the state. It is an arena where the forces of opposition must confront in a collective sense the misdeeds and contradictions of the regime so that a different kind of counter-hegemony could be offered as an alternative.

In Malaysia, civil society is for all intents and purposes a political society and we need a political solution to dismantle the present racial set-up.

P RAMASAMY is a professor of political economy at the Political Science Department, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and has academic interests in Malaysian politics and labour. He has written quite extensively and is currently focusing on conflict management in Sri Lanka.