Lessons about nation‐building and civil society

Abstract

The concepts “nation‐building” and “civil society” have extensive roots in positive social theory, but both have been reborn as important prescriptive concepts in the context of foreign aid. Even as a normative concept, the term “civil society” means quite different things, as at least four models can be distinguished in the foreign aid context. More to the point, today's normative notions of nation‐building also vary, seemingly by the model of civil society that is being used. However it is construed, nation‐building faces serious problems that are both external and internal to those efforts. Externally, there is a problem of scale, as globalisation tends to outflank nation‐building; internally, the result of civil interactions do not always facilitate nation‐building efforts.

Outflankers or outflanked? Investigating the concept of organizational outflanking through power, its forms, levels and practise

“…Outflanking appears in the literature on several different levels, such as the international level, where research has examined how governments can be outflanked by private equity, due to privatization and glo-balization (Allen, 2008), or through the increasing prominence of transnational actors (McCall, 2009), as well as how organizational resources are used to outflank activist organizations (Bondesen, 2018). Literature has also explored outflanking at the collective level through striking (Johnston, 2004) and feminist political action (Haugaard, 2003;Kesby, 2005).…”