Civil Society Reconsidered

Encarnación, Omar G.; Armony, Ariel C.; Forment, Carlos A.; Howard, Marc Morjé

doi:10.2307/20434002

Cited by 24 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…After two decades, civil society, as formulated in the above terms, has 'failed to live up to its reputation as a democratic miracle worker'. 10 Therefore, there has been a growing discussion about how civil society can become part of, be influenced by and build on undemocratic tendencies in the existing political structures. 11 Scholars have documented how states can employ strategies, oscillating between political liberalisation and deliberalisation.…”

Section: Civil Society and Prospects For Democratisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Civil Society in the Middle East: The Cases of Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey

Altan‐Olcay

İçduygu

2012

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

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Section: Civil Society and Prospects For Democratisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Civil Society in the Middle East: The Cases of Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey

Altan‐Olcay

İçduygu

2012

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

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“…A computer model of knowledge management that enhances social Those who work in terms of categories of cause and effect can argue as does Encarnacion (2006) that civil society needs to be reconsidered, because a state can be undermined by civil society. This misses the point.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can we break the mould? Democracy, semiotics and regional governance

et al. 2008

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Personal moral responsibility, public ethics and accountability in policy making and governance are the essential ingredients (supported by legal measures) which we need in order to institutionalize respectful dialogue across diverse stakeholders at the local, national and international level. The idea is to ensure that the process supports subsidiarity, namely those at the receiving end of a decision should be party to the decision making process, thereby ensuring that complex decisions can be made that represent the needs of the majority whilst taking into account the needs of the minority whose ideas could be vital for problem solving. By engaging in processes that enhance participatory democracy we can match decisions more appropriately and enable people to have ownership of the ideas. Semiotics for the purpose of this paper is about exploring ideas with people and carefully considering who is making the argument, what the arguments mean to individuals and interest groups and why. Critical systemic engagement refers to two way dialogue ('a cybernetics of cybernetics') aimed at achieving syntheses or preserving difference to the extent that difference does not undermine the freedom or diversity of others. Representation is one of the major challenges if democracy is to be enhanced, if terrorism is to be prevented and if people are to be able to understand the consequences of their decisions-a cultural shift-that is needed to develop more sustainable futures. Through the process of engaging in dialogue ideas need to be explored by asking: who said this, why and in what context? How do their ideas overlap or diverge from others? Representation in diverse democracies needs to be based on engagement, not just voting. This is one of the major challenges if democracy is to be enhanced, if terrorism is to be prevented and if people are to be able to understand the consequences of their decisions-a cultural shift-that is needed to develop more sustainable futures. Legal measures that make respectful dialogue constitutional need to be embedded as covenants internationally, thereby ensuring that complex decisions can be made that represent the needs of the majority whilst taking into account the needs of the minority whose ideas could be vital for problem solving. Sustainability needs to be institutionalized.

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“…Furthermore, these activities linked with only a limited range of organizations, resembling Western counterparts (Hawthorne, 2004;Altan-Olcay and Icduygu, 2012). When the hopes vested in this strategy did not bring about gradual democratization (Encarnación, 2006), and ''friendly'' regimes became visibly problematic, discussions of moderate Islamic actors became pronounced.…”

Section: The Place Of Critiquementioning

confidence: 99%

Politics of critique: Understanding gender in contemporary Middle East

Altan‐Olcay

2015

Geoforum

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a b s t r a c tThis paper explores the implications of spatial production of academic knowledge on the Middle East, through the critiques of Orientalist discourses on the ''Muslim woman.'' It begins with an examination of the success of postcolonial studies and scholarship on democratization in challenging racist perceptions and politics in the West. Then it reflects on the ways in which this knowledge production travels and is reconfigured in places where power inequalities are different. This requires a consideration of the regional consequences of either an over-emphasis on differences in agencies of ''Muslim women'' or a relative silence on issues of gender inequality. The paper's suggestion is to shift the focus from representation and discourse to the structural circumstances in which ordinary men and women's agencies play out; various political mechanisms which participate in the production of acceptable cultural practices; and patterns of resistance, which may defy arguments about culturally specific definitions of agency. This is a quest for making the ''exotic'' familiar, without exoticizing the familiar.

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Civil Society Reconsidered

Cited by 24 publications

References 0 publications

Mapping Civil Society in the Middle East: The Cases of Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey

Mapping Civil Society in the Middle East: The Cases of Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey

How can we break the mould? Democracy, semiotics and regional governance

Politics of critique: Understanding gender in contemporary Middle East

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