Prijepori o Civilnom Društvu
Contemporary Controversy About Civil Socviety

Summary/Abstract: The essay in the first part examines the confusion and ambivalence in the contemporary discourse on civil society, and it tries to identify some major points of the existing divergences. The first major point is found in the meaningful context in which the notion of the civil society is used. Three contexts are identified: the first is characterized as the last refuge of the still existing utopian energies; the second is described as turning the notion of civil society into a combating notion (Kampfbegriff); the third treats the notion as purely descriptive and analytical one. The second major point refers to the scope of the notion of civil society. In its widest scope the civil society is used as synonymous to the global society if it is an open, democratic, pluralistic one; the other definition excludes the government and political establishment, but includes non-government and non-profit citizens' associations as well as the market-economy; the third definition excludes government, political parties and market oriented and profit making associations, but includes NGO's plus the so-called new social movements. The third major point of controversy concerns the very nature of civil society. On one side there are definitions of the nature of civil society insisting upon its horizontality, equality, voluntarity, pluralism etc but primarily upon no claims to domination and upon the lack of any form of compulsion and violence. Therefore, the sphere of civil society is conceived of as a distinct one from the state, established politics and the major parts of society at large. On the other sides, the nature of civil society is conceived of as fully participating in type of social relations existing elsewhere in the society at large which means it being contaminated by inequality, domination, compulsion and violence. The fourth major point refers to the nature of relations of civil society discourse and praxis in Croatia to three different ways of conceiving of and practicing politics. The one that belongs to the Aristotelian tradition, the other to Max Weber views and, finally, to Carl Schmitt's tradition. Finally, the discourse on civil society is examined from the stand point of different ways of conceiving of sovereignty. The second part of the essay is devoted to description of the recent history of the discourse and practice of social society in these parts of Europe, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia in different stages of the vicissitudes of the Yugoslav crisis and in the process of transition in terms of a radical political and social de-construction and re-construction of the entire area.

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