Civil society and globalization: rethinking the categories

The discourse of civil society has gone global. Once again theorists of democracy are placing their bets on civil society to generate solidarity, publicity, civicness, awareness of new forms of injustice, and democracy vis-à-vis the new world order. Yet too many analysts are naïvely optimistic or ideological about global civil society s democratizing role. In order to visualize the proper role of civil society in the global context, careful systematic analysis is needed concerning the ways in which globalization has transformed the key parameters of civil society and how such changes recursively affect how civil society impacts national, regional, transnational, and supranational bodies. There can be no vital democracy without civil society, but civil society cannot replace constitutional democracy or the rule of law at any level of government