Civil Society's Affect on Democracy

Civil society, as proposed by Howard, is an important part in the attempt to understand a populace’s level of participation in government. The level at which civil society is present within society is a direct correlation with the level involvement that average citizens play in government. Howard’s argument lies in the fact that when an individual becomes involved in civil society, they are then more likely to be keen on having a government that allows them some type of participation in government, most notably through a democratically influenced institution. In making this assessment, Howard juxtaposes this view with data that he has collected from three different types of political societies: old-democratic, post-authoritarian, and post-communist. In these three political societies Howard found that in the societies where civil society had been tolerated, and sometimes promoted (old-democracy and post-authoritarian) these societies had a much larger affinity for membership in various organizations, which in turn helps strengthen civil society.

However, in a post-communist society where civil society had been bitterly repressed, Howard found that citizens were much less likely to engage in public organizations. He found that because of various reasons that were unique to a post-communist society, individual citizens are much less likely to engage in civil society. Howard concluded that because of the unique society that post-communist citizens arose from, they were less likely to engage in civil society.

The interesting aspect of his argument is the fact that Howard concludes that this is why post-communist nations have taken so long to democratize. Communism has been quelled for less then 20 years yet political pundits continue to argue that there are issues specific to the region that disallow them from democratizing quickly. Howard fails to shed light on the numerous post-authoritarian nations in Africa that have not achieved a true democracy, and this after being a ‘post’ state for much longer then the European communist nations. Rather then block each nation in these over-arching categories; I feel that it is imperative that nations are examined in individualistic terms, rather then in broad categorizations. Although Howard has found similarities between the post-communist nations of Europe, this