BATI KONSEPTİNDE SİVİL TOPLUM
CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE WESTERN CONCEPT

Summary/Abstract: Although studies on the state and its relations with civil society have recently become popular in the western and eastern world alike history of the debates can be traced back to Cicero. What made discussions about civil society so favorable within the social sciences and in public life in general was, according to Keane, “the sense of an end of an era, the unacceptability of tyranny, the disenchantment with etatism, the desirability of certain types of liberty.” (Keane, 1996:.10) Hegel, Marx, Paine, Gellner and many other western thinkers have one think in common which is the necessity of civil society for a democratic state despite their differences in its historical evolution. Many think that civil society is just the opposite of a “military society”. However, the meaning of the concept is related to “city life and culture”. It represents “rights and responsibilities” emerging with the rise of free societies and democratic states. Thus there are obvious disparities between advanced and nonadvanced democracies and the degree and existence of civil society in these democracies.

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