Uses of “Civil Society”

Issue Date October 1995
Volume 6
Issue 4
Page Numbers 169-173
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Read the full essay here.

A review of Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals, by Ernest Gellner.

About the Author

Marc F. Plattner, founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy, is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy. He also serves as cochair of the International Advisory Board of the Institute for Political Studies at the Portuguese Catholic University.

View all work by Marc F. Plattner

Further Reading

Volume 5, Issue 1

The Road from Athens

A review of Democracy: The Unfinished Journey, 508 BC to AD 1993, edited by John Dunn.

Volume 14, Issue 4

Making Sense of the EU: The Challenge for Democracy

The EU was founded partly for the purpose of strengthening democracy, but it has been created in a way that is intrinsically not democratic.

Volume 13, Issue 1

The Weakness of Postcommunist Civil Society

Recent studies suggest that civil society in the postcommunist countries is significantly weaker than in other types of democracies, old or new. Can this legacy of communism be overcome? If…