Građansko društvo i demokracija u tranzicijskim društvima
Civil society and democracy in transitional societies

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the concept of civil society in relation to its theoretical legacy and also with its meaning within the context of social reality of developed democracies and transitional societies in particular. The author looks into the fundamental features of the societies of developed democracies where defining the further development of civil society and its adjustment to new social circumstances is under way, primarily due to the preservation and strengthening of the civic initiative and the expansion of the space for civic and political participation. For transitional societies democracy is a coveted goal. The author’s opinion is that the establishment of an autonomous civil society and the application of its elementary mechanisms is the essential and irreplaceable condition of its realization. He looks into the prospects for the democratisation of the public and the political space of transitional societies by means of the application of social and political patterns of civil society, especially in relation to all the differences and particularities of those societies that serve as inhibiting factors (social and political legacy, authoritarian aberrations). Despite a plethora of obstacles, the prospects for an autochthonous structuring of the civil society within the existing social conditions, based on the same universal values of the civil society in developed democracies, are much bigger than those for the implementation of the ready-made solutions from developed democracies.

• Details
• Contents