Civil Society and Social Movements in Authoritarian Contexts
Day-2 Comps, October 2012
Instructions: Answer 2 out of 5 questions. Submit answers within 48 hours
- Drawing on your reading list, discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of social capital for:
- 1) collective action OR
- 2) civic engagement
Discuss how the implications may or may not vary across different institutional contexts.
- Recent literature has paid growing attention on the network and technological dimensions of social movements. Drawing on your reading list, explore the linkages of social networks, information and communication technologies, and social movements in one authoritarian society of your choice.
- Western conceptualizations of “Civil Society”, whether neo-Tocquevillian or more critical, view civil society as an arena for non-State action that either provides opportunities for groups and communities to contest hegemonic ideologies and institutions, or as sources of moral or communitarian revival and reaffirmation necessarily independent of the State. Such approaches presume a powerful but benevolent State, or at least a level of potential group solidarity that makes effective collective action possible.
Discuss the utility of the concept of “Civil Society” in contexts that are characterized by more parochial patterns of social organization in which tribal and other local identities outweigh more geographically and culturally inclusive identities and in which the State is neither benevolent nor necessarily powerful. In theoretical or practical terms, do any of the components of civil society realistically promise to foster the rise of more general (national?) political identities, or does such an expectation reflect the desire of Western interests to project a pro-Western ideology and values onto others for whom they are foreign? More simply put, is the concept of civil society of any real use in understanding group interactions and political processes in other regions of the world with radically different cultures and forms of local social organization?
- In The Social Contract, Rousseau argues that civil religion should be used to generate national solidarity. Elaborate the types of rituals that might be used in the practice of this civil religion, and the tensions between civil and “real” religion. What would be some signs that rituals associated with civil religion are becoming, in Randall Collins’ terms, “forced” and unsuccessful? Are those signs different now than they were before the recent transformation of communication networks? And how would you expect those signs to differ when comparing a culturally homogenous and authoritarian society with an multicultural democratic one?
- Are “weak ties” more important for social mobility and social change in democratic societies than authoritarian ones? If so, why? If not, why not?