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Article: Civil Society in Africa or African Civil Society?
- Article from:
- Journal of Asian and African Studies
- Article date:
- February 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 E.J. Brill. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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STEPHEN ORVIS [*]
ABSTRACT
One of the most vociferous and voluminous debates in African politics over the past decade has been over the concept of civil society. Both optimists and pessimists in this debate tend to define (often implicitly) civil society too narrowly and ask of it too much. By insisting on a definition of civil society that is an idealized and rather narrow vision of civil society in the West, neither optimists nor pessimists have portrayed African civil society accurately. To provide a more realistic analysis, we must focus on the broad array of collective activity and norms, whether "democratic" or not, that constitute actual existing ...