Defining Characteristics of Civil Society By Timothy j. Peterson and Jon Van Til
“Civil society” has become a central theme in contemporary thought about philanthropy and civic activity, yet it is difficult to define, inherently complex, and resistant to being categorized or interpreted through a singular theoretical lens. The term is increasingly used to suggest how public life should function within and between societies; at the same time, it provides a way of describing the social action that occurs within the context of voluntary associations or intermediary bodies (Riesman and Glazer, 1950; Van Til, 2000). Nonprofit organizations, like other groups and institutions in modern societies, operate within and are conditioned by three types of systems: economic, political, and social. Nonprofits themselves, in turn, give group members the opportunity to exercise three fundamental civic principles: participatory engagement, constitutional authority, and moral responsibility. Matrices (such as the one included in this article) are helpful tools for considering terms such as civil society that contain multiple facets of meaning, characteristics, and relationships. This particular matrix illustrates the unique and specific meaning contained within each characteristic--and the interrelationships that exist between characteristics--of this complex concept. These systems and principles produce a matrix of nine civil society characteristics that can be used to evaluate and guide the work of various agencies, groups, and organizations. A careful assessment of these characteristics can be useful to nonprofit organizations in identifying the presence of civil society and gauging its strength within a particular social context, and helpful in matching organizational goals to specific civic actions that will encourage positive social change. Widespread and legitimate citizen involvement in this civic context remains a foundation for nurturing and sustaining healthy and productive societies, especially in urban settings.
Systems of Civil Society
All societies, whether “civil” or otherwise, contain similar patterns of organized systems of collective human experience, including economic exchange, political governance, and social relationships. Systems of economic exchange that promote patterns of civil society depend on the sustainable availability and equitable use of natural and social resources necessary for constructing a satisfying and "satisficing" life by present and future generations. Sustainable economic development is necessary for the health and longevity of any society. It requires a mutually supportive, symbiotic relationship between the natural economy of ecosystems and human social economies, with a particular concern for the poor. The formation of civil society usually partners with an identifiable system of political governance, characterized by open, public decision-making for all community members through governmental structures that (1) permit legitimate access to and use of civic space and resources, and (2) maintain fairness within the existing political and judicial systems by promoting and protecting the welfare of the people, with particular concern for the disenfranchised. Social relationships within a civil society are characterized by strong, active, vibrant, diverse community-based groups and networks that (1) facilitate open, voluntary participation; (2) enable community stakeholders to hold economic and political actors accountable for outcomes of policy decisions; (3) provide a context for mutual benefit and exchange; and (4) seek to promote the “common good,” with a particular concern for inclusion of those currently marginalized.
Principles of Civil Society
The literature suggests that the three principles--participatory engagement, constitutional authority, and moral responsibility--are found in all civil societies regardless of cultural context.
Participatory engagement indicates that members of the society (1) enjoy access to and governance of resources used for the common good, (2) are free to be involved in civic action and social change, and (3) are free to participate in group affiliations that provide a sense of belonging on a community level.
Constitutional authority protects the rights and privileges of citizens in a civil society. Under the rule of law, citizens and social groups are constitutionally legitimized and empowered to hold economic and political actors accountable for their work as community servants and trustees. Local and national decision-makers, motivated by the common good rather than self-interest, are expected to design and implement public policies that strengthen the vitality and welfare of the community. Within this social context, all community members have moral responsibility to use their civil liberties in ways that do not violate the human rights of others. The practice of equity, justice, and reciprocity produces social order and stability.
Characteristics of Civil Society
These three systems and three principles combine to articulate nine measurable characteristics of civil society.
“The Commons”
Civil society is advanced when citizens share a social right of access to the commonwealth of resources produced, used, and exchanged through natural and social economies in a community and through a society. Access, in this context, includes the abilities both to contribute to the resources and to benefit from them. Broad, community-based civic engagement in economic activities occurs in the arena of what is historically called “the Commons,” as in the Greek agora and the English market. As citizens participate in the open exchange of commonwealth resources, they can form and strengthen social connections and networks with others.
“Office”
Civil society is advanced when citizens can exercise their civic duty of self-governance by participating in political structures that exhibit decentralized power and authority. Community-based civic engagement in political governance exists when community members have the opportunity to hold positions or “offices” of public decision-making and leadership.
Associations
Civil society is advanced when citizens can openly and voluntarily participate in diverse social affiliations, groups, networks, and structures for self-governance and social transformation. “Association” refers to those social places where people gather and interact with others to exchange ideas, offer support, and receive a sense of belonging. Community-based civic engagement in systems of social exchange exists when diverse social groups and gatherings are present and permeable.
Trusteeship
Civil society is advanced when citizens hold decision-making power, work to strengthen and improve local and regional economies, and exercise sustainable and socially transparent stewardship of societal resources (e.g., human, social, material, and ecological) on behalf of the “common good.” Community-based activities of civic responsibility in systems of economic development exist when citizens enjoy the legitimate authority of resource trusteeship.
Sovereignty
Civil society is advanced when citizens have the right to be involved in all aspects of political governance and the authority to make decisions and perform actions affecting all levels of public life, without the institutions of public life being “captured” by the interests of specific groups or individuals. The presence and legitimacy of community-based civic authority through systems of political governance increase the ability of citizens to exercise sovereignty over policies and programs that can positively affect their lives and the quality of life in their community.
Accountability
Civil society is advanced when citizens, acting through community-based groups and associations, are able to use basic civic freedoms and rights (e.g., fair elections, free speech, a free press providing access to information, freedom to organize in groups) to hold economic and political actors responsible for the outcomes of policies, programs and patterns of resource distribution, and the exercise of political power.
Equity
Civil society is advanced when each citizen is given equitable access to and use of resources required for constructing a satisfying life. A moral condition of equity forms the foundation of activities that expand and strengthen economic conditions for all community members. Economic equity of resources is necessary for producing and sustaining an improved quality of life for all people, especially the poor.
Justice
Civil society is advanced when citizens pursue social justice by (1) consistently and compassionately using the “rule of law” in fulfillment of their civic obligations, and (2) advocating for those excluded from the political process and harmed by unjust laws. In classical Greek thought, justice was accomplished by having people serve the city-state according to their status by birth. Gender, merit, rank, and wealth all were criteria for the role one was expected to play in the society, whether citizen or non-citizen. If the social order became disrupted, "justice" was accomplished by restoring people to their former positions of power and status. Unfortunately, the practice of justice according to this particular "rule of law" allowed previous inequalities to continue. The disenfranchised remained excluded after the work of justice. Contemporary views of citizenship and justice reflect these classical ideas in their adherence to a rule of law that is based on the ethical norms of society, but the particular ethical norms have largely shifted. In the United States, the bases of citizenship and political participation have changed. Heredity, wealth, and social position have given way to the unalienable right of common citizenship legitimized by the Constitution. A law or policy is considered unjust if it is unconstitutional or contrary to the democratically formed rule of law.
Reciprocity
Civil society is advanced when citizens (1) pursue social transformation through reciprocal, mutually dependent collaboration with others, and (2) negotiate, mediate, and resolve conflict through peaceful, nonviolent means. The nature of civic environments requires that social relationships in communities be limited and conditional. Not everyone in a society is invariably viewed as a legitimate member and given equal access to its resources. The term reciprocity highlights two interrelated moral issues of social relationships: how people to treat one another, especially when conflict exists; and how group boundaries are defined and transcended.
Post-reading activities:
Explain underlined terms and expressions.
Discuss how the article presents the concept of “civil society”.
Examine the text in Russian provided below, which is a compilation of reflections by Lyudmila Alexeeva. Taking her views into account and drawing on the principles of civil society, describe how such a phenomenon is treated in Russia.
Prepare a mini-presentation on non-governmental organizations in Russia.
Text for rendering (Lumila Alexeeva)
Мне нередко задают вопрос о перспективах Движения-31. Мне трудно на него ответить, потому что ответ должен включать в себя две составляющие: как поведут себя граждане и как поведет себя власть. И то и другое можно оценивать лишь предположительно. Единственно возможный ход рассуждений должен опираться на историю развития Движения-31. А оно уже имеет историю, потому что продолжается более года, заявки на митинг на Триумфальной площади в защиту статьи 31 нашей Конституции за этот срок подавались одиннадцать раз. Рассмотрим, как развивалось Движение-31 с точки зрения участия в нем граждан. Первая заявка была подана Эдуардом Лимоновым перед 31 января прошлого года. Он получил отказ, но тем не менее его сторонники вышли на Триумфальную площадь и были разогнаны. Митинги эти были немноголюдными и не вызывали никакого резонанса в обществе. В июле Лимонов обратился ко мне. Он надеялся, что участие в акции правозащитников сделает ее приемлемой для властей. Ведь нам в отличие от него довольно часто удается согласовать с властями наши мероприятия. 31 августа 2009 года я впервые участвовала в этой акции в качестве наблюдателя вместе со Львом Пономаревым и коллегами из Молодежного правозащитного движения. Благодаря участию правозащитников акция на Триумфальной впервые освещалась в российских и зарубежных СМИ и стала заметным событием. Но тем самым мы невольно привлекли и внимание властей. Триумфальная площадь оказалась наводнена милицией, ОМОНом, которые отмобилизовались так, будто Москве угрожает захват какой-то хунты. Участников было не так уж много, всех впечатлило именно скопление противопоставленных им сил. Журналисты сообщали в основном об этом. После 31 августа я согласилась быть в числе заявителей митинга. Но надежды на то, что власть согласится на его проведение, если среди заявителей будет председатель всемирно известной Московской Хельсинкской группы, не оправдались. Нам по-прежнему предложили провести митинг на бульваре Шевченко или на Болотной площади, но не на Триумфальной. Хотя в заявке мы подчеркивали, что хотим создать традицию, и поэтому для нас принципиально важно, чтобы митинг всегда проводился на Триумфальной. Поскольку предоставить нам это место городские власти отказались, мы публично заявили, что митинг проводить не будем. Это значит, что не будем использовать звукоусиливающую аппаратуру, не будет знамен и плакатов, но, чтобы укрепить традицию, мы выйдем на Триумфальную площадь с бейджиками или стикерами “Статья 31 Конституции РФ” или просто “31” и молча постоим там какое-то время. Ведь этого никакой закон не запрещает. Идея сработала. Начиная с 31 октября прошлого года постоянно увеличивалось количество тех, кто приходил в этот день и час на Триумфальную площадь, несмотря на то что для многих это оборачивалось задержанием, подчас очень грубым, и административным судом. Идею площади поддержали Московская Хельсинкская группа, правозащитный центр “Мемориал”, Всероссийское движение за права человека, молодежная организация “Оборона” и оппозиционное движение “Солидарность”. Начиная с 31 января нынешнего года акции в защиту статьи 31 Конституции в тот же день стали проходить в других российских городах и даже за рубежом. А с мая мы стали писать в своих заявках не, как прежде, что “мы хотим создать традицию”, а что “уже существует традиция”. Все больше российских граждан сознают необходимость защиты статьи 31 Конституции РФ. На площадь выходят люди, ни в каких акциях протеста прежде не участвовавшие. Это люди разного возраста и социального положения, но все они ощущают наступление властей на конституционные права граждан и готовы ему противостоять. В ходе одного из недавних опросов на тему, какое событие последней недели вы считаете самым важным, на первом месте (24%) был ответ: события 31 августа на Триумфальной площади; для сравнения, вояж Владимира Путина на “Ладе Калине” сочли самым важным событием недели 17% опрошенных. Можно утверждать, что традиция защиты конституционных прав успешно привилась. А следовательно, можно прогнозировать, что эту традицию будет поддерживать все большее количество граждан и в Москве, и в других городах. И что международная поддержка Движения-31 будет усиливаться. Теперь рассмотрим реакцию на эту тенденцию со стороны властей. Каждое 31-е число Триумфальную площадь и окрестности заполняют крытые грузовики и автобусы, доставляющие сюда милиционеров, а также автобусы, которые загружают задержанными для доставки их в отделения милиции. Там на них составляют протоколы как на нарушивших общественный порядок и направляют эти протоколы в районные суды. Представьте, какие огромные человеческие и денежные ресурсы расходуются на эти цели. Но только устрашающими акциями дело не ограничивается. Каждый раз власти создают видимость занятости площади другими мероприятиями, но все это выглядит неубедительно, порой до комичности. Так, 31 августа прошлого года площадь была занята якобы соревнованиями велосипедистов, а на самом деле там крутили педали велотренажеров два неспортивного вида толстяка. 31 декабря 2009 года заявили на Триумфальной предновогоднее народное гулянье, но при этом огородили елку так, что подойти к ней было невозможно. К тому же в суде, куда заявители обратились с жалобой на незаконность отказа в проведении акции, выяснилось, что в момент подачи нашей заявки не было постановления властей о проведении массового гулянья. И суд признал незаконным отказ в проведении митинга. А 31 марта и 31 мая нынешнего года выдумка оказалась еще глупее: заявили, что прокремлевские молодежные организации будут собирать на площади кровь у доноров. Но люди, отправившиеся туда добровольно сдавать кровь, обнаружили, что в палатке, установленной для этой цели, им готовы определить группу крови, не более того. В эти же дни на Триумфальной проводились демонстративно многолюдные сборища “Молодой гвардии” с речами, песнями, плясками, с гремящими репродукторами. Нам же по-прежнему оставалась узкая полоска по периметру ограды. После 31 мая, когда там собралось особенно много самых разных людей, происходящее, похоже, заинтересовало федеральные власти. Я имею в виду Администрацию Президента. По всей видимости, оттуда была дана отмашка избежать позорного противостояния силовиков гражданам, мирно защищающим свое конституционное право. Со стороны властей была сделала попытка предоставить нам возможность провести митинг на Триумфальной площади, но переговоры начались в последние дни перед подачей заявки, велись они наспех, обе стороны не проявили договороспособности, и времени как-то отрегулировать ситуацию не хватило. В результате площадь, опять-таки наспех, отдали под соревнование каких-то очень шумных автомобилей, которым место только на стадионах. А нас опять оттеснили на узкую полоску по периметру площади. Наконец, 17 августа, на следующий день после подачи нашей очередной заявки, власти заявили, что под Триумфальной площадью будут строить подземный паркинг. Однако в долгосрочных планах развития города это строительство не значится, а специалисты говорят, что там рыть никак нельзя — все уже занято метро и подземными коммуникациями. Тем не менее всю площадь огородили. Видимо, надолго. К тому же власти, похоже, твердо решили, что традиция гражданской защиты Конституции опасна для их благополучия, и пойти навстречу гражданам в этом их абсолютно мирном стремлении не намерены. К чему приведет это противостояние власти и общества? Лично я прогнозировать не берусь. Давайте думать об этом вместе.
Topic 6: Women in politics
Text 1
Pre-reading activity:
Discuss what you know about the change in the role of women in politics around the world and your country.
The world's most powerful women
Germany has ushered in its first female chancellor, the US is gearing up for an all-woman presidential battle - so, wonders Mary Dejevsky, is sex no longer a political issue? Plus, Anne Penketh introduces the exclusive club of female national leaders. Angela Merkel's confirmation as Germany's next chancellor has been a struggle every inch of the way. It's taken more than three weeks of hard bargaining, even though her party had won the election. It's also required her to sacrifice a large part of her electoral manifesto, and left her presiding over a cabinet in which her majority amounts to her one casting vote. With Merkel's elevation to the chancellery, however, comes one immediate and undisputed privilege: membership of the world's most exclusive club. Even now, in the 21st century, the number of national leaders who are women is only just into double figures. Ever since her prospects of taking Germany's top job were first mooted, Merkel has been adamant that she should not be compared to Margaret Thatcher. "I'm a physicist, she's a chemist," she began briskly when I asked her the obvious question earlier this year. But the comparison is unavoidable. Margaret Thatcher - who has just celebrated her 80th birthday - has set the standard by which all who come after her shall be judged. Thatcher survived every ordeal that the men's world set for her. She mastered each and every portfolio they placed in front of her. She outfoxed the men in political strategy; she outlasted them in stamina and showed a steelier backbone than they did when she dispatched the Navy to recapture the Falkland Islands and told George Bush senior not to "go wobbly" over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. At the same time, she managed to meet most of the men's expectations of women. She was married, with twins. She could look domestic or glamorous as required. She could flirt if she chose, and she was partial to a whisky or two in the Downing Street flat out of hours. Her feminine side was the ultimate weapon she could use to disarm adversaries. Venus or Mars, "soft power" or "hard power", Mrs Thatcher could deploy either or both as required. This is what it takes to be the consummate woman leader, even now. Most women leaders past or present have fallen short in one aspect or other. How resistant German voters were to the prospect of a woman chancellor is hard to quantify. Merkel is not a natural campaigner; she made tactical mistakes. But her failure to meet the demands of German voters for both male and female traits was arguably one reason why her predicted landslide did not materialise. Some women felt that she had let her sex down by behaving too much like one of the boys. "She's a man making it in a man's world. We don't recognise the woman in her," several independent-minded women told me during the campaign. Others - including Chancellor Schroeder's wife, supposedly speaking as a journalist rather than spouse-supporter - suggested her life experience was incomplete because she does not have children. She had reluctantly bowed to the pressure of the Christian Democrat hierarchy by marrying her long-time partner before being elected head of the party. But for her childlessness to become an election issue - as it did - reflected both the conservatism of German society, where mothers still tend not to work, and her own reluctance to hit back smartly in her own defence. This was one time, critical supporters agreed, when she heeded a feminine instinct she might have done better to ignore.
Surveying those currently in national leadership positions around the world, a variation on the old axiom still holds as true of women as of men. Some are born to leadership; some achieve leadership; and some have it thrust upon them. Down the years, very many women, not only the crowned heads of Europe, owe their leadership positions to their birth. Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia and Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines come to mind, as well as Aung San Suu Kyi, prevented by the military dictatorship from becoming leader of Burma. Others owe their elevation to marriage and early widowhood: they had leadership thrust upon them, and in many cases proved more than equal to the task. Eva Peron, Corazon Aquino and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, head the list. More unusual is Sonia Gandhi, who had leadership thrust upon her and chose to delegate it.
Merkel is one of those women - rare in the past (Golda Meir comes to mind), but now increasing in number - who has risen to national leadership largely by her own efforts. Which is to say, by a similar combination of expertise, chance, ambition and patronage as most male politicians. The key, though, is patronage from within the existing establishment. Today, outside the Scandinavian countries where women are now becoming a determining part of the establishment, that still means the patronage of men, commonly in political parties or - for some of those who emerged in the post-Communist states of Europe - the trade unions. It was Conservative power-brokers, such as Airey Neave, who helped Margaret Thatcher to power. Merkel was the protégé of Helmut Kohl, hailed as one of the great chancellors for presiding over the peaceful reunification of his country. Another ingredient, not unique to women, but often helpful, is the frequency with which their abilities or ambitions are underestimated. Both Merkel and Thatcher were initially merely tolerated as leaders of their respective parties because they were deemed harmless and the men judged that their time at the helm would be short-lived. With Thatcher, the rest was history. With Merkel, the next few months should show. But woe betide a strong woman without a sturdy armour of patronage. Ask Segolene Royal in France. Royal, long-time partner of the Socialist Party leader, mother of his children, but also a former minister and an impressive politician in her own right, was bold enough to suggest she might entertain a bid for the French presidency next time around. The catcalls resounded loud and long. Through most of the Western world women can now rise to ministerial level without raising eyebrows, national leadership, however, is another matter.
Even the United States, with all its equality provisions and affirmative-action programmes, has not cracked it. This is the country described by Madeleine Albright, its first female secretary of state, as "standing tall and seeing further into the future" than others. So when will it elect a woman president? Election, to be fair to US voters, is probably less of a problem than securing the party nomination. This is where all the "good ol' boy" back-slapping and fund-raising demands come into play that were so consummately met by the younger George Bush. But there is a third requisite, of course, and this is the perceived ability to win. The US media are already salivating over the prospects of a contest in 2008 that would guarantee a woman president. Senior Republicans are terrified at the prospect of Hillary Clinton heading the Democratic ticket. Their response? To fuel expectations that the current Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, will run for the Republicans. Both have several 2008 websites in their name, set up by well-wishers. Both hold jobs that, if they were men, would be thought of as springboards for the White House. Both meet almost every requirement for nomination; both are highly competent and ambitious. As for patronage, you could hardly do better than Bill Clinton, on the one hand, and the whole Bush clan on the other.Ms Rice's disadvantage is that she has never run for office and she has so far kept her private life private. Mrs Clinton's is the opposite: her liabilities - chiefly Bill - are well known and repel as many voters as they draw. But this would be fantasy-politics for real. Imagine a Hillary v Condi debate: two articulate and astutely political women; blonde v brunette; white Democrat v black Republican. With either of these women, the biggest question may be less whether America is ready for a female president than whether either really nurtures a burning ambition to run. Ms Clinton seems genuinely in two minds. Ms Rice, unidentified "friends" are quoted as saying, would wait to be "drafted", rather than put herself forward. Like many men who have ascended the greasy poll so far, they might just decide they have better things to do.
Post-reading activities:
Explain underlined words and expressions.
Point to the main themes raised in the article and offer your views as you agree or disagree with the evaluation of the women’s situation in politics presented in the article.
Prepare mini-presentations about the history of feminism in the world and a Russian female politician (think about her life principles, character, political views, support and the level of popularity currently).
Text 2
Pre-reading notes: In this assignment, you are asked to gloss over several quotes selected from various speeches of female activists and provide your commentary.
Margaret Thatcher
Former Prime Minister of Great Britain
"I knew the prejudices against women in the top job and I think we look too much at women and men in jobs...you come to a certain time and you look at the personalities available and their policies. And that's how women get on - right personality, right capability, and right place at the right time."
Mary Robinson
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
"I think that times are changing. For example I … appointed a women judge of high court and present at the ceremony was the woman minister of justice and it was the attorney general who was the only man - providing some gender balance as I told him. And these changes are taking place and I certainly am a woman in a position of authority who wants to be a role model if I can and to encourage and very much to stimulate a sense of confidence and a sense of assuming responsibility."
Emma Bonino
Member of European Parliament for Italy
"I really refused since the beginning to be labelled again only on the responsibility of Health, Education or the so-called more feminine field; so I've been trying not to be trapped another time on the same cliché that are applied to women. So "well you've joined politics, ok, you've been elected in parliament, ok, we must accept you but please go back to your Health Committee or Education Committee" seemed to me another cliché which I simply refused."
Mo Mowlam
Minister for the Cabinet Office
"I brought a very different character from the characters that had been there before and I think it was probably more my character, my directness, my honesty, my saying as I see it which probably was as important to what I brought to the process as my gender. But there's no doubt that my gender helped in some situations but in others it was a handicap ... some of the men didn't like women in positions of power."
Topic 7: Building multicultural society
Text1
Pre-reading activity:
Discuss the notion of multicultural society; point to potential struggles of governments and nations; outline a pool of countries considered to be multicultural.
Adrian Favell
(University of California, Los Angeles)
Multicultural nation-building: ‘integration’ as public philosophy and research paradigm in Western Europe
Notwithstanding the sharply anti-immigrant politics still present in most countries in western Europe, progressive minded policy thinking on the subject has, in recent years, emerged across all of the continent. As many comparative studies have documented, the shape and content of this policy making show many ‘local’ national variations, often linked to the distinct political cultures, political systems or geographical features of the various European nation-states concerned (see Brubaker 1992; Favell 1998; Joppke 1999; King and Black 1997; Kastoryano 1997; Mahnig 1998; Guiraudon 2000; Koopmans and Statham 2000). Despite variations, however, it is striking that much of this new policy thinking has developed in different countries under the all-purpose rubric of ‘integration’: a vague yet technical sounding term that encompasses a range of positions from more assimilatory policies through to more openly multicultural ones. In my contribution to the debate, I seek to explore why the idea of ‘integration’ continues to be the focus of so much discussion, and how this apparently arbitrary term in fact imposes quite distinct nation-state-centred contours and constraints on the kind of policy solutions and policy research that is done in its name.
It might seem puzzling, or even reactionary, that this somewhat old-fashioned term - that has its roots in the biologistic functionalist sociology of the Durkheimian tradition - is still the leading ordinary language term used to encapsulate and project the developing relations between host western societies and their growing immigrant-origin populations (see Rex 1991). Famously, it was the word to which then home office minister Roy Jenkins turned in sixties Britain to map out a third way between ethnic conflict or breakdown and coercive assimilation (see Favell 1998, 104). A similar middle road coalesced around the term in France in the late 1980s, as a series of high level public commissions formulated a national philosophy of integration, reconciling ideals of republican equality with the growing fact of cultural diversity (Haut Conseil à l’Intégration 1993). Despite the frequent criticism heard from more radical anti-racist critics, mainstream policy academics in Britain continue to use the term. A 30 year audit of the British race relations framework was conducted under this name, even though typically the term goes remarkably undefined in these reflections (Anwar et al 2000). Elsewhere, the concept has never been more popular. International organisations such as the Council of Europe, influential European NGOs and prominent transatlantic thinktanks have all invested heavily in studying comparative frameworks of integration in recent years (Bauböck 1994; Migration Policy Group 1996). Countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden have returned to more integrationist thinking in policy - again using this exact term - after several years flirting with more radical pluralist modes of thought (Fermin 1999; Soininen 1999). The term is prominent and dominant amongst more progressive minded protagonists in Belgium, Germany and Austria (Blommaert and Verschueren 1998; Esser 1999; Waldrauch 2001). Switzerland, Italy, Denmark and Sweden, meanwhile, have all produced high level commissioned reports on the integration of immigrants in recent years. And, of course, these usages run parallel with the enormous intellectual effort charting the development of the European Union also in terms of integration, an entity itself now getting increasingly interested in the integration side of immigration and asylum policies.
It is worth reflecting, then, on why academics or policy makers tend to still use the term ‘integration’ to speak of such a complex process of social change, and the collective goal regarding the destiny of new immigrants or ethnic minorities. For all the technical differences between these states and their political contexts, the term itself does impose commonalities. We can, of course, think of a long list of measures designed to deal with the longer term consequences of migration and settlement. These can be distinguished from immigration policies per se, such as policies on border control, rights of entry and abode, or of asylum. ‘Integration’ conceptualises what happens after; conceiving practical steps in a longer process which invariably includes the projection of both social change and of continuity between the past and some idealised social endpoint. Measures concerned with integration include (the list is by no means exhaustive, but indicative): basic legal and social protection; formal naturalisation and citizenship (or residency-based) rights; anti-discrimination laws; equal opportunities positive action; the creation of corporatist and associational structures for immigrant or ethnic organisations; the redistribution of targeted socio-economic funds for minorities in deprived areas; policy on public housing; policy on law and order; multicultural education policy; policies and laws on tolerating cultural practices; cultural funding for ethnic associations or religious organisations; language and cultural courses in host society’s culture, and so on (for similar checklists of policies, see Kymlicka 1995, 37-38; Soysal 1994, 79-82; Vertovec, 1997, 61-62).
What is interesting is when and why such measures are packaged together and interlinked within the broader concept of ‘integration’. The very difficult-to-define process of social change pictured here is for sure spoken of using a plethora of other terms: assimilation, absorption, acculturation, accommodation, incorporation, inclusion, participation, cohesion-building, enfranchisement, toleration, anti-discrimination, and so on. Yet other terms on this list are either vaguer (absorption, accommodation, toleration); too technically precise, and hence absorbed within integration (such as incorporation, which specifies a legal process, or anti-discrimination, which only describes one type of practical measure); or are concepts which can be used descriptively without necessarily invoking the active intervention of some political agency (assimilation, or acculturation). In recent years, less loaded terms such as inclusion and participation have had some popularity, but neither can match the technical ‘social engineering’ quality of the term integration; nor do they invoke a broader vision of an ideal end-goal for society as a whole. Visionary academics and pragmatic policy makers all need a descriptive and normative umbrella term, that can give coherence and polish to a patchy list of policy measures aiming at something which, on paper, looks extremely difficult and improbable: the (counterfactual) construction of a successful, well-functioning multi-cultural or multi-racial society. The identification of this conceptual space in progressive-minded practical thinking about the consequences of immigration has - however euphemistic - always been a key part of the term’s success.
A closer look at the political process by which integration has emerged in various countries as a middle ground, suggests a further common mechanism. In most cases, the options of policy makers are caught between the political rejection of immigrants by nationalist or anti-immigrant parties, and the more radical visions of anti-racist or post-national thinking that reject all mainstream political efforts to manage the situation. Given the anti-immigrant feeling that can, under certain circumstances, be mobilised in general public opinion, mainstream politicians need to find some kind of calming discourse that will play down the disruptive or threatening effects that immigration has when it becomes a hot, salient political issue. Some idea of integration, then, has invariably provided a more moderate ground by which to promote the pragmatic multicultural, and pro-minority thinking policies needed to deal with the social consequences of immigration, while reconciling the novelty of this with a restorative, patriotic discourse on how successful immigrant integration can sustain and enrich the nation, offering continuities to national liberal democratic traditions of the past.
With local variations linked to distinct self-conceptions of political culture, integration as a kind of ‘multicultural nation-building’ has thus come to anchor the mainstream liberal discourse on post-immigration politics across all of western Europe. Britain and France, proudly confident of their relative and long-standing success in managing the challenge of immigration and cultural diversity in the post-war epoch, have lead the way in this patriotic version of multiculturalism, establishing with their post-colonial politics a kind of ‘multiculturalism-in-one-nation’ in each country, sharply distinct in their self-perception from others around it. Other countries, more hesitantly, are now following this same path, despite the fact that such nation-building thinking may now appear anachronistic in an era of Europeanisation and globalisation. Yet policy makers pay a heavy price if they challenge the supremacy of the restorative nation-building frame in their discussions of multiculturalism or ethnic diversity. The recent Parekh report in Britain (Commission on Multi-Ethnic Britain 2000), which set out to provide a defining frame for new thinking on race relations and immigration at the turn of the millennium, was hamstrung between a mostly patriotic focus on the successes of ‘Great’ British multiculturalism, defended by some of the Commission, and a more radical anti-racist flavour, injected by the critical theorist Stuart Hall. The whiff of a more radical marxist internationalism in a few sections of the report - notably those arguing that the term Britain had white racial connotations - was enough to bring the entire political mainstream, both liberal and conservative, down on the report, and destroy its many more moderate proposals. To the powers that be, something very significant is clearly at stake in the rhetoric taken by nation-state-centred actors, trying to reconcile their own hazy future in a global world, with the fact that the national context is still the main location for the accommodation and social change brought on by immigration and multiculturalism in formerly homogenous western nation-states. To take another paradoxical example, that underlines this reality. Many white Belgians nowadays are used to the fact they no longer think of themselves as Belgian but rather as Flemish or Walloon (or even Bruxellois); yet in any progressive-minded discussions of the destiny of new immigrants n the country, it is automatically assumed that they what they should and do aspire to become is in fact belge, although no-one else, apparently, now needs to be fully integrated into the Belgian ‘nation’ in this way. As in Britain and France, immigrants themselves know that the quickest way to achieve acceptance is to openly embrace a new national identity, rooted in a fictional idea of Belgium as a unified multi-cultural nation, that belies its other deep cultural and ethnic schisms. Similarly, ethnic minority members in Britain or France will go to great lengths to empower themselves by asserting their ‘Britishness’ or ‘Frenchness’, while also claiming to have brought new cultures and ethnic affiliations to these old western nations.
Integration thus points us back towards the old fashioned nation-building paradigm used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to create unified territorial nations out of the patchwork of distinct regions, ethnies, classes, social divisions, etc that have always characterised Europe. Integration is a term which roots immigration thinking in the old idea that the nation-state is still the principle unit of social organisation in Europe. Its sociological affectations, on the other hand, point us towards another defining characteristic of this mode of thought. That is, that integration is linked not only to the idea of the nation-state, but the nation-state specifically as a distinct ‘society’, a unified, organic, bounded entity which alone can encompass and hold together the diversity and divisions of people sharing this same territory. In an era of globalisation and increasing cross-national mobility one might argue that the idea of the world being divided up into such ‘nation-state-societies’ is a fiction whose time is overdue (Urry 2000). Yet fiction or not, the sociological assumption about the need for a coherent entity into which immigrants are integrated, has become a necessary part of all constructive policy formulation on the subject. It is here that that sociology has had one of its most lasting impacts on modern thought. For sociology’s basic object of enquiry is ‘society’. Sociology, in its classic incarnation, thus sets up the study of society as that of the study of an ideal-type bounded, shared, functional whole (a set of institutions, social structures, a territorially defined population, etc), which may then provide the framework for empirical studies on inequality, urban problems, alienation, social conflict and so on, which measure the disfunctions of ‘real’ societies in relation to the ideal-type. This in turn - especially in applied sociology’s American heyday during the 1950s and 60s - then generates conclusions as ‘social policy’, that is, as ideas that will restore the ideal by addressing the problems of the present. Sociology thus can provide policy makers with both the empirical evidence and normative impetus needed to justify state or governmental intervention into ‘social’ problems.
What this intellectual process does specifically is furnish agency to the state, and hence empower political actors to intervene in social phenomena that may in fact be beyond any political agency’s control. It claims these phenomena for the nation-state-society, which thus imposes a framework and boundary on the workings of culture or the market, ‘penetrating’ and ‘caging’ them within the realm of governmental state power (Mann 1993). The furious efforts of the European Commission to generate social policy research, in the name of the European Union, in order to justify the creeping intervention of the EU into new and ever expanding areas of competence across Europe, follows exactly this ‘state-building’ logic. Here, of course, the issue is to seize some sense of governance over global financial and economic processes that no individual nation-state in Europe is able to control. A similar logic dictates all the talk about the integration of immigrants, and the manifold policy options it invokes. In an age of declining nation-state powers, the consequences of immigration provided new raw material for nation-state-centred actors to re-assert their relevance and their jurisdiction over processes that are forever slipping beyond their control.
The discourse of integration thus works functionally to enable state-actors to re-imagine governance over complex societal processes, offering a counter-factual ideal picture which sits well with longer-standing national discourses about cultural unity and historical destiny. Academics in many countries have played a key part as actors in defining this social policy ideal, and indeed the detailed content of policies of integration in the various national debates. Beyond this, it is also important to recognise that the themes and methods of pure research are no less constrained by the nation-state building paradigm that dominates thought in this field, helping in turn to sustain the nation-state with its intellectual formulations. Work that has focused on ‘models’ or ‘modes’ of incorporation or in terms of formal and participatory ideas of citizenship, inevitably reproduces a state-centred perspective in its understanding of the relevant institutions shaping integration processes (i.e., Castles 1995). Similarly, work that tries to evaluate integration in terms of the legal rights or provisions that exist in various countries (often rating the social democratic North European countries better than others with more laissez-faire policies), overstates the relevance of state-structured intervention and often overlooks the many informal, market and culture-centred processes that may in fact be taking place at street level in countries (Waldrauch and Hofinger 1997). Until lately not enough work has been done on the urban, city-level context of integration, in a field dominated by national level comparisons and policy discussions. The voices and experiences, too, of migrants has often been absent from much comparative research. And, although, large scale survey work is now beginning to emerge at a cross-national level, meaningful comparison is hampered by the fact that technologies of data gathering and conventions of framing samples remain dictated by the fact that nearly all data is derived from national census sources, and classified in terms that sharply reflect national ways of conceiving and talking about ‘ethnic minorities’, ‘immigrants’ or ‘foreigners’ etc vis-à-vis the ‘indigenous’ or original population (compare Modood et al 1997, Tribalat et al 1996, Diehl et al 1999, Lesthaege 2000).
The nation-state-centred nature of much research has made it easier for national policy makers to co-opt and use academic research as part of their self-justifying process of building agency and governance over immigration questions. It is difficult, meanwhile, for academics to forego the nation-state-society framework, not least because nearly all funding for empirical research flows from these policy imperatives. Intellectually, moreover, it is exceedingly difficult to operationalise ideas about ‘integration’ that do not fall into the nation-state-society paradigm. One can in theory recognise the multi-levelled, overlapping, cross-national nature of immigration phenomena, but it is difficult to speak of these things politically without sounding destructive and being dysfunctional towards the social institutions that hold our fictional societies together. ‘Integrated’ nation-states are perhaps still the most effective way to forestall the confusion threatened by the idea that the new elements of the societies we live in, and the dramatic social change that is going on, may not necessarily link up or fall under the control of any one governmental authority, able to shape this confusion with targeted and bounded policies of citizenship, incorporation, assimilation and so on. As Hans Mahnig stresses, behind the discourse, policies of integration are often shambolic and ad hoc attempts to grasp what is going on. And as Michaèl Bommes always emphasises in his work, we Europeans cling to the fundamental national structure of the welfare state, precisely to forestall the chaos suggested by the fact social phenomena increasingly do not fit neatly into the tidy box of the classic nation-state-society.
Immigration in the post-war period has thus introduced substantial dissonance into the old idea of the nation-state-society as the founding unit of Western European society and politics. The reaction of anti-immigrant parties and politicians - which is always framed in defence of welfare state, ideas of national unity, identity, etc - is one primitive response to this. The more realistic, pragmatic acceptance of immigration by mainstream policy makers has itself come with the realisation that a new cohesive ‘national’ discourse would be needed to patch up these worries, to deny the decline of the nation-state that immigration appears to bring on. The vast intellectual effort that is being made across Europe to formulate realistic ideas about integration as multicultural nation-building, and foresee more progressive modes of management of immigration and ethnic relations, signals the importance of this ongoing rescue attempt. The idea of European (EU) integration plays a similar role vis-à-vis the struggling European nation-state. As long as we can conceive some bounded, unified entity into which immigrants might integrate, then there is life yet in the nation-state-society in Europe, however uncomfortable or unlikely this narrative looks when we look at the details of what is actually happening behind it.
Post-reading activities:
Explain underlined terms and expressions. Point to specific instances in the text discourse (locate words, sentence structures, or idiomatic expressions) that contribute to the clarity (or lack of it) of the author’s language.
Share your perception on how Europe copes with the issue of building a multicultural state.
Examine the essay written by V.Nikonov and discuss the notion of a multicultural state in the Russian context.
Comment on the following: Once Th.Roosevelt said that America was not a boarding school. There was no space for any other language but English. Express your attitude to the belief that “a native language is not a privilege but a linguistic right.” How would you accommodate a multitude of languages in a multicultural society?
Discuss the following. Multicultural society implies accommodation of various religions. View a short video episode about the role of Islam in the US and offer your critical opinion. In addition, think how the same issues are treated in Russia.
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