A Theory of Civil Society

The predominant vision of liberal democracy sees democratic institutions as a way to secure a stable regime for a people with plural and irreconcilable views of the good. Pluralism is assumed to be a permanent condition of life under democratic institutions. All we can hope for, indeed all we should shoot for, is agreement with respect to the political doctrines governing constitutional essentials. An alternative vision of democracy is more optimistic. Here, democratic institutions secure the conditions for an open-ended conversation about the good life, in which citizens reflectively and jointly seek a comprehensive view of the good. Not every citizen is expected to participate and no particular outcome is presupposed, but the culture as a whole reflects this progressive disposition. My sympathies lie with the second vision. However, a thorough defense is beyond the scope of a single dissertation. My aim instead is to make a first step toward such a defense. The issue here is democratic stability. Many philosophers argue that civil society is crucial to democracy because it cultivates and sustains democratic moral character. However, 'civil society' is used in so many ways that it is difficult to see its theoretical value. In order to critically evaluate its importance, I proceed as follows. In chapter one, I clarify the problem that civil society is thought to solve: 'How is it possible to cultivate a democratic political culture, given the ideals of democracy and the realities of the human condition?' Next, in chapter two, I analyze attempts to give a general account of civil society. I argue that no such account is possible: conceptualizations of civil society are context-dependent. This forces a particularist evaluation of the appeal to civil society; I consider five theories through chapters three and four. None of these, I argue, successfully explains how a democratic political culture might be secured. Finally, in chapters five and six, I present an alternative account. In my view, the civil society that best solves the problem of democratic political culture is also one in which the grand conversation intrinsic to the second vision of democracy takes place.