Civil Society (3rd Ed)
by Michael Edwards
Polity | May 2014 | ISBN-10: 0745679366 | scanned PDF | 192 pages | 16.2 mb

Civil Society has become a standard work of reference for those who seek to understand the role of voluntary citizen action. Recent global unrest has shown the importance of social movements and street protests in world politics. However, as this lucid book shows, the power that people have to shape their societies is usually channeled through day-to-day participation in voluntary associations and communities: expressions of “normal” civic life beyond the headlines. This is the underlying story of civil society. This new edition explores issues that have developed rapidly in recent years, including the overlaps between civil society and the market in the form of social enterprises and “venture philanthropy,” and the increasing role of social media and information and communication technologies in civic interaction. Different varieties of civil society in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere are investigated in more detail, and case studies, data, and references have been updated throughout. Colleges, foundations and NGOs, policy-makers, journalists and commissions of inquiry Ð all have used Edwards’s book to understand and strengthen the vital role that civil society can play in deepening democracy, re-building community, and addressing inequality and injustice. This new edition will be required reading for anyone who is interested in creating a better world through voluntary citizen action.

About the Author
Michael Edwards is widely recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on civil society, philanthropy, and social change. For the past thirty years, he has worked to strengthen the contributions of ordinary citizens to their communities as a grant giver, writer, advocate, organizer, and activist across five continents, and has lived and worked in Zambia, Malawi, Colombia, India, the UK, and the United States. Michael graduated from Oxford University with a "congratulatory" first-class honors degree in geography, and was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of London for his work on housing the urban poor in Latin America. Michael is the author of thirteen books and hundreds of articles and op-ed pieces, and his writings have changed the way we think about voluntary action and the transformation of society. He writes regularly for openDemocracy, the Financial Times, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and many other newspapers and magazines, and is a featured speaker at literary festivals and other events around the world. He lives with his wife, Cora, a nonprofit-fund-raising consultant who also teaches at New York University, in Swan Lake, a small community in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains of New York, where they have painstakingly rebuilt and renovated one of the first houses built by settlers who arrived in the 1830s to establish a tanning industry in Sullivan County.

CONTENTS
Preface v1
Acknowledgments xii
1 Introduction - What' the Big Idea? 1
2 Civil Society as Associational Life 1 8
3 Civil Society as the Good Society 43
4 Civil Society as the Public Sphere 66
5 Synthesis - Unraveling the Civil society Puzzle 89
6 So What' to be Done ? 114
Notes 1 33
References and Bibliography 143
Index 167
 
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